Date: 08-09-2017
Booth Energy to lay off 217 in Floyd, Johnson, Martin
The Kentucky Office of Employment and Training reports 217 people will lose their jobs with the closure of several coal mines and related businesses operated by Booth Energy in Floyd, Johnson and Martin counties.
Ryan Wilson, Booth Energy’s human resources director, reported the layoff in a Warn Act Notice letter to the Kentucky Office of Employment and Training’s rapid response coordinator, Martin County Judge-Executive Kelly Callaham, Floyd County Judge-Executive Ben Hale and Johnson County Judge-Executive R.T. Tucker Daniel on Aug. 1.
Wilson reported that Booth Energy subsidiaries, Matrix Energy of Johnson County, Eagle Coal Company of Johnson and Floyd counties, Beech Fork Processing of Floyd County, Long Fork Development Company of Johnson County, Pinnacle Processing of Martin County, Coal Transport of Johnson County, Collins Creek Services of Johnson and Martin counties, and Marco Mine Supply of Martin County, notified 217 employees of the closures that day.
The layoff impacts 99 employees who work for Matrix Energy, Beech Fork, Long Fork and Eagle Coal at the Matrix Mine #1; 40 employees of Eagle Coal at the Eagle Mine #25; 39 employees of Pinnacle Processing who work at the Pinnacle Preparation Plant; four Marco Mine Supply employees; nine Coal Transport Employees and 26 employees who provide mining support through Collins Creek Services business in Johnson and Martin counties.
“As a result of this reduction, it is currently anticipated that a total of 217 persons will be separated from employment … None of these employees are represented by a union. These terminations will be permanent, and employees will have no bumping or recall rights,” Wilson wrote in the letter.
He reported that some of these employees may be relocated to other Booth Energy facilities.
“Certain employees will be offered the opportunity to remain employed by one of the Companies or to accept employment at operations owned by affiliates, but the exact number of employees who will be impacted has not yet been determined,” he wrote.
Wilson, who did not return a call seeking comment, ended the letter with a pledge of support for these employees, stating, “The company pledges it sincerest efforts to provide its employees with needed assistance during this difficult time.”
Hale voiced his concerns for the families impacted and the state of the local coal mining economy, saying layoff announcements like these shows operators are having a tough time finding markets to sell their coal.
“We haven’t seen no boom yet in the putting miners back to work, which was the promise made to Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia,” he said. “I don’t comment on private enterprises, as far as what their reasoning for it is, but obviously, we still have a market condition that is still not selling the steam coal.”
He called James H. “Jim” Booth, owner of Booth Energy, as “heck of an entrepreneur,” and said he is confident that Booth would keep investing in the region if there was a market for the coal. He said this layoff shows the region is still feeling the effects of the closure of the Big Sandy electrical plant in Louisa, which used more than two million tons of coal before it switched to natural gas.
“I just that that for these families,” he said of the layoffs. “These families, they were making good money, and, hopefully, sometime in the near future, they will be able to go back to work.”
The mines and facilities on the chopping block at Booth Energy have seen declining production and hefty fines from the U.S. Mine, Safety & Health Administration over the years.
The Matrix Mine #1 in Martin County, where 99 of those who will be laid off are employed, had had hundreds of violations cited since 2006 and the company has paid nearly all of the $1.1 million in penalties assessed since that time.
MSHA reports the company has paid $53,200 toward $286,000 in penalties assessed last year and $3,700 toward an estimated $31,600 in penalties assessed this year. MSHA has not assessed penalties that could be waged on about two dozen additional citations issued at the mine since June 19.
Production at this mine was about 1.5 million tons in 2006, but it produced less than half that last year, at 595,000 tons, and it has produced 237,185 tons this year.
The Eagle Mine #25, located at Coppers Creek in Floyd County, which employs about 40 people who are scheduled for lay-off, has paid about $70,000 in penalties for violations since 2011, MSHA reports, and it has paid $1,200 toward more than $17,700 in penalties posed this year.
Production at this mine peaked at 323,300 tons in 2015, and it dropped to 291,000 tons last year. This mine has produced 138,000 tons of coal so far this year, MSHA reports.
The Pinnacle Processing plant, where 39 people are employed, does not produce coal, but employment hours have declined from 192,000 hours worked during its peak years to 137,000 hours last year and 57,000 hours so far this year, according to MSHA.
The layoff notice comes as coal production increased over last year in Kentucky.
In its quarterly coal report, analyzing the coal industry from April through June, the Kentucky Energy and Environmental Cabinet reports that production in Eastern Kentucky fell by 7.26 percent over the quarter, but production up from this time last year by 9.2 percent in the region. Statewide, production is up by 4.12 percent since last year.
Production decreased by 13.5 percent in Martin County and increased by 247.7 percent in Floyd County since this time last year, the report says. Tonnage mined for the quarter was 283,000 in Floyd and 188,000 in Martin.
Floyd County added 111 mining jobs since last year, the report says, but mining jobs decreased by 110 in Martin County. In Eastern Kentucky, employment decreased by 83 jobs since this time last year.
Hale said the increase shown in Floyd is so high because mining operations dwindled significantly in Floyd last year.
The report shows that around 15,000 people worked in coal mines in Eastern Kentucky in 2008, and those numbers have steadily declined. In the first two quarters in Eastern Kentucky this year, mining jobs totaled 3,970 and 3,760, respectively.
MSHA lists 18 surface and underground mines and mining facilities in Floyd County, and only half of them, including the Eagle Mine controlled by Booth Energy, are active. The others are either non-producing or temporarily idled.
MSHA lists four active preparation plants, one surface and one underground mine, for a total of seven mining operations, in Martin County, and Booth Energy controls four of them, three of which will close through the warn notice issued this month. The other one, operated by Coalbug Enterprises, Inc. has been temporarily idled since 2015.
MSHA lists 10 surface mines and one preparation plant in Johnson County, five of which are temporarily idled or inactive and one of which is operated by Booth Energy, the Beech Fork Processing plant. Hours worked at this plant swelled to 96,000 in 2011, but dropped to 6,630 last year. It has reported 4,566 hours worked so far this year.
By Mary Meadows
Floyd County Chronicle & Times