‘Soft Coal’ Miners Fear Hard Times Lie Ahead Under Clean-Air Law : Economics: Midwestern colliers understand that pollution must be reduced. They also know they have children to feed and rent to pay.

As Gary Hart descends into the darkness to work each day, he fears the future. As a miner, he could lose his job. As mayor, he could lose his town.

The double peril is brewing hundreds of miles away in Washington, D.C., where Congress has been rewriting the clean air laws, setting new standards that could crush a small community that lives and thrives on coal.

The local mine’s only customer is one of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants in the nation, and new rules intended to prevent acid rain are likely to force it to reduce the amount of sulfur dioxide that spews from its stacks. Just how it will do that is a question that has Kincaid on edge, hoping for a reprieve but fearing the worst.

“If (the power plant) shuts down completely, I’m not going to have a community to lead,” Hart said. “It’ll sit there and die. People will have to move to get jobs. It’s just a sad thing. People want to work, they want their jobs, but how do they keep them?”

Across the Midwest and northern Appalachia, where high-sulfur, or “soft” coal, is mined, Kincaid and other towns are wondering whether new clean-air rules will pit health against wealth and reduce prosperity along with pollution.

“There is a need for clean air,” Hart said, “but completely wiping out an industry is not the solution to the problem. It just creates a bigger problem.”

An Ohio congressman recently said that acid rain controls could cost his state as much as $2 billion a year and raise some commercial power rates by as much as 40%. In Kentucky, officials say that half the coal mining jobs in the western part of the state could be lost. In Illinois, which lost 30% of its coal mining jobs in the 1980s, perhaps 4,500 more people could be put out of work.

Nationwide, the federal government says that up to 5,000 high-sulfur coal jobs may end by 1995. The United Mine Workers predicts that number will approach 20,000 by 1999, further damaging an industry that has shrunk 44% in the last decade.

Commonwealth Edison, which owns the plant at Kincaid, won’t decide how it will reduce sulfur fumes until a clean-air measure becomes law. Earlier this month, a House version was approved in committee and the Senate passed a bill that Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.), one of its 11 opponents, said would “decimate” his state.

Edison could install exhaust “scrubbers” that would cost about $350 million and cut plant emissions about 90%, or take one of two other actions. It could switch to cleaner-burning, low-sulfur coal from the West or shut down the plant. Either would almost certainly lead to the mine’s closing.

“We’re doing everything possible to try avoid closing the plant,” said John Maxson, Edison’s governmental affairs director.

The stakes are enormous. The power plant and Peabody Coal Co.’s mine No. 10 across the road employ nearly 900 people and the two payrolls total about $25 million a year, Maxson said.

Meanwhile, in this town of 1,500 where sons and fathers work side by side in the mine, the uncertainty has folks fretting.

“You’re hanging by a thread,” said miner Butch Spinner. “Are you going to fall on the good side of the lake or on the side with the alligators?”

“We’re pawns in a big political game,” said Ron Phares, 33, a husky 12-year veteran of the mine. “You feel powerless, pushed aside, neglected. . . . I’d hate to be 55, 56, 57, looking this in the eye. Where are you going to go?”

Miners also say that while they’re all for reducing pollution, having fought for cleaner air underground, this isn’t a simple case of good vs. evil.

“I hope environmentalists have some sympathy with me,” said Tim Drea, a second-generation miner. “Many of my co-workers’ fathers were miners. They went to high school, got a job, married their prom dates. Now their kids are 10, 11, 12. All they know is coal mining.

“If the mines close because of emotional legislation, these people are left with nothing. I can’t agree with that any more than I can agree with dirty air.”

In fact, many environmentalists favor subsidies to cut cleanup costs and protect jobs, but others say that utilities and mines have adopted a head-in-the-sand policy.

“They played this denial game for 10 years,” said Clark Bullard, an environmentalist and mechanical engineering professor at the University of Illinois. “They denied acid rain was a serious problem. Now they’re looking for sympathy and bailouts.”

Bullard said there was little support several years ago for a federal utility surcharge to help pay for smoke scrubbers.

“The time for getting a good deal has passed,” he said. “The deal we’re going to get is going to hurt the Midwest.”

Too much so, say the miners and utilities. They maintain there is no conclusive proof that heavy damage is caused by acid rain, which results from sulfur and nitrogen oxides mixing with water in the atmosphere. Acid rain is blamed for damage to forests and fish kills in lakes of the Northeast and Canada.

The Senate bill calls for emissions of sulfur dioxide to be cut by 10 million tons annually by the year 2000.

Miners say that if that takes jobs away, the government should help them.

“If Bush can bail out the savings and loans, he can help the coal miners,” said Paul Wagahoft, a Kincaid miner.

But Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W Va.) was unable to win approval of an amendment to the Senate clean air bill that would have set aside $500 million for aid to miners who would lose their jobs.

“Coal miners can’t walk across the street and find another job,” said Gerald Hawkins, legislative director of Illinois District 12 of the UMW. “There is none.”

That is a bitter reality in Kincaid and other central Illinois towns.

“What are they going to retrain you for around here?” Phares asked. “This is a farming area. There’s not much industry to go into. . . . I’d have to relocate. You’re not going to make $15 an hour and have good insurance.”

“You’re not going to step out tomorrow and find a $30,000-a-year job,” Wagahoft said. “You’re going to have to start over.”

Hart also worries about the impact on Kincaid, which he says is home to about 25% of the work force at the mine and plant.

“You take 100 miners in the community--they get paid $1,000 every two weeks,” he said. “That would be lost.”

Some miners are bracing for the worst. They are taking accounting classes, attending truck drivers’ school, putting off home repairs and purchases.

Whatever happens, they say, they will adjust.

“It’s something I feel I can’t change,” Phares said. “I can’t tell George Bush I’ve got three kids, I’ve got a house payment, I’ve got a truck payment.

“Whatever comes, I’ve just got to accept it. I’ve just got to live with the consequences.”