Some Coal Is Still Left.

As one local coal miner so aptly stated; And now, it starts again. Oh, don't get me wrong. "King Coal" is not back and will never return to this area on the Green River. This area is Lewis Creek. I have hunted and fished from the northern end of Lewis Creek to where it empties into Green River. The hunting and fishing are not over, but another process is taking place. Just a little north of Rockport on the Ceralvo side of Lewis Creek, and on the East side of the Rockport/Ceralvo road a small stripper and several earth movers are busy removing the overburden and extracting the coal. The coal is being loaded out and dumped in large hoppers at the Midway Preparation Plant. Then it is processed and blended to meet the specific needs of area coal-fired power plants. Various companies purchase coal to meet their specifications and Armstrong Coal Company delivers.

Delbert Brown and I toured the Lewis Creek Mine area of the Armstrong Coal Company on August 6, 2013. It was nice, in a way, to see so many miners working and removing the coal form the bowels of the earth. It was great that a lot of these miners would be able to take home a good paycheck on a twice a month basis. These bi-monthly checks spent in this area will turn over and help the local economy. It was also sad to see such destruction of the land that he and I have walked, camped, fished and hunted over as young teenagers some half century ago. With the large equipment and by State laws, the company will be required to reclaim the land and return it to some close form of the way it was before mining. In the past, the stripped land was left in such a manner that it would not be usable in a hundred years of more. Check out some of the waste land in the Ken Mine area if you have any doubts. Anyway, twenty or so years from now and when the coal companies are all gone, hope is eternal for the land to be fertile again.

At this writing, or at least when these pictures were taken, the Bucyrus Erie 770 Dragline was working its' way toward the Rockport/Ceralvo Road. Intentions are in the near future for the dragline to cross the road. Warning signs are in place and a turnaround on the northern and the southern ends of the crossing have been built. Soon, the machine will cross the road and start digging on the West or River Side of the Rockport/Ceralvo Road. I would be guessing, but suspect that the coal will be removed from the West side of the road and the dragline will cross back over to finish the East side. The picture on the left of this write-up is of two remaining houses that have been vacated. They are located on the River Side of Rockport/Ceralvo Road and their fate is in the counting down process. The houses were the homes where Wayne and Marilyn Hunsaker and Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Chancellor had built their retirement homes. Don't guess anything is finite or final.

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Lewis Creek Mine is a surface mine located in Ohio County and near Rockport, Ky. The miners are extracting steam coal from the West Kentucky #13A and 13 coal seams. Lewis Creek utilizes one dragline and the truck-and-shovel mining methods. Lewis Creek produced 0.8 million tons of coal in 2012.

Lewis Creek Mine
3211 Hwy 85E
M1 Lane
Rockport, KY 42369

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:)