Centralia Coal Mine was an

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

, owned by the Canadian-based

TransAlta Corporation TransAlta Corporation (formerly Calgary Power Company, Ltd.) is an electricity power generator and wholesale marketing company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is a privately owned corporation and its shares are traded publicly. It ...

. The mine shut down in 2006. Also referred to as the TransAlta Centralia Mining (TCM) operation, the coal mine was located approximately northeast of the city of

Centralia Centralia may refer to: Places Australia *Central Australia, sometimes called "Centralia" Canada * Centralia, Ontario ** RCAF Station Centralia, a former Royal Canadian Air Force training base ** Centralia (Essery Field) Aerodrome United State ...

, in Lewis County, in the US state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. Together with

Centralia Power Plant Centralia Big Hanaford power plant is a major coal-fired power plant supplemented with newer natural-gas-fired units. It is located east of Centralia, Washington, United States in Lewis County. It is the only commercial coal-fired power plant in t ...

, it was bought in May 2000 by TransAlta for $554 million – $101 million for the mine and $453 million for the power plant.

History

The Centralia Coal Mine was Washington state's largest coal mine. The mined coal was supplied exclusively to the adjacent coal-fired Centralia Power Plant, which is operated by TransAlta Centralia Generation LLC, and the coal mine was operated by TransAlta Centralia Mining. Prior to May 2000, the mine was owned and operated by PacifiCorp.

Production

The Centralia Mine completed its 31st year of production in 2001, producing of sub-bituminous coal, 354,481 short tons more than it produced in 2000. The mine's average annual production over 1997–2001 was 4.4 million

short ton The short ton (symbol tn) is a measurement unit equal to . It is commonly used in the United States, where it is known simply as a ton, although the term is ambiguous, the single word being variously used for short, long, and metric ton. The vari ...

s per year; average annual production over the life of the mine was 4.3 million short tons per year. Officials of TransAlta Centralia were planning to increase annual production at the mine to more than 5 million tons per year and were looking at another 25 years of production from the mine. Coal production in 2001 at the Centralia Mine came from 4 open pits. Coalbeds mined were the Upper and Lower Thompson, the Big Dirty and Little Dirty seams, and the Smith seam. These coalbeds are part of the Skookumchuck Rock Formation, which is composed of nearshore marine and nonmarine

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

s. The Skookumchuck Rock belongs to the upper member of the Eocene Puget Group.

Closure

On November 27, 2006, TransAlta stopped operations at the mine, citing increasing operation costs, and is now using coal from the

Powder River Basin The Powder River Basin is a geologic structural basin in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming, about east to west and north to south, known for its extensive coal reserves. The former hunting grounds of the Oglala Lakota, the area is very s ...

in Wyoming to supply its power plant. The mine employed about 600 workers at the time of the closure. The mine began being

reclaimed Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lak ...

, with the aim of returning the land to its former forested state. The reclamation includes the fill of the open pits, regrading, and the dredging of water sources, while planting trees and other natural specimens. , half of the reclamation project was considered complete. The site has been determined as a potential recreation area once the recovery processes are complete. The company that owned the mine closed it because it was too expensive. Digging and cleaning the coal from the mine took more money than buying and shipping cheaper coal from nearby states. It was the last coal mine in Washington.

References

{{coord, 46, 46, 24, N, 122, 50, 36, W, format=dms, display=title, type:mountain_region:US-WA Coal mines in the United States Geology of Washington (state) Buildings and structures in Lewis County, Washington Surface mines in the United States Centralia, Washington Mines in Washington (state)

History

Production

Closure

See also

References