East Fork mine is an Armstrong Coal Company surface mine that is presently shut down. It started operational in 2009 and quit mining coal in late 2011. The coal seam being mined, although relatively shallow, was a less desirable coal. It is a number 14 coal seam and possibly the mine will restart when the #14 coal is needed or can be used. The mine is located near the city of Centertown in Ohio County, Kentucky. The mine is just east of the Kronos Mine and near the Armstrong Loading Dock, on the Green River. Most of the overburden removal is done with Komatsu hydraulic excavators similar to the one pictured, with a lot of help from a Komatsu Dozer. The coal is then loaded on coal trucks and trucked to the Armstrong Dock and Preparation Plant for processing. The East Fork Mine only sold 0.8 million tons of coal in 2011.

Kentucky coal, and coal in general, is under attack from a lot of directions, the president, EPA, environmentalists, etc., but the facts bear out that coal is used to generate more that 50 percent of the nation's electricity. The "Green Energy", or what a lot of people like to call "Renewables", combined generate less that 2 percent of this country's electricity. Some leaders in Washington, D. C., especially the politicians in control of this country, would like to double that, but doubled would only account for less that 4 percent of the total generation. Hats off to Armstrong Coal Company for going against the grain.



See you......
jrd