A return of coal mining in central Cambria County has placed the focus on Cambria Township.
CRESSON, Pa. — A return of coal mining in central Cambria County has placed the focus on Cambria Township. But the events of recent weeks show the Mainline areas of Portage and Cresson will play major roles in an initiative that promises to create 750 permanent jobs.
Last week, officials of Amfire Mining Co., of Latrobe, were in Cresson Township meeting with Supervisor Clarence Eger on water monitoring as they try to nail down the site for the Mine 33 portal.
Also in the works are plans to turn about half of a 70-acre site in Portage Township into a coal refuse area. Much of that bony material is expected to eventually be taken to one of the region's cogeneration plants.
Mine 33 may be eight miles away in Cambria Township, but all eyes are on the Lilly Level Road in Cresson Township as the portal for the miners and the coal, Eger said last week.
"It's going to be right down Lilly Level Road and they'll go down Route 53 to the tipple," Eger said he was told by Amfire Mining, one of three companies involved.
Amfire will bring the coal out of the mine, and truck it to the former Cooney Bros. Coal cleaning plant in Sonman, Portage Township. It will then be moved to the coke-producing plant, to be built on a 120-acre site outside Ebensburg. SunCoke, a division of Sunoco Inc., will use the coal to produce coke for its partner -- International Steel Group Inc. of Cleveland.
The many elements are coming together ahead of an incentive package expected to be announced by Gov. Ed Rendell in March.
"Think of this as a 500,000-piece puzzle," said Ronald Budash, executive director of Cambria County Industrial Development Authority.
In mid-February, the state Department of Environment Protection said it could issue a permit to the developer, Cambria Coke Co., perhaps as early as April.
It is one of a number of permits needed for the mine operation. Still under review is a permit application from Amfire to develop and operate a coal refuse disposal site near Sonman.
Mine 33 covers a vast area around Ebensburg and involves coal seams stretching as far east as Cresson, officials said. "When you enter Mine 33, you could go all the way across Route 219, that's how long the shafts are," Budash said from Ebensburg. "You can go miles underneath the ground.
"It's more cost effective to develop a new shaft than to go in and use the old one." Two mine entrances are expected in Cresson Township: One in the area of Eger Road on the south side of Route 22, and a second near Coach Road.
"It appears it's going to be along Route 53 south of 22. That seems to be the target site," Budash said. "There will be a main shaft, but there also could be a second shaft." Township supervisors recently granted an Amfire request that part of an unnamed township road -- south of the four-lane, about 500 feet west of Lilly Level Road -- be closed to grant the company better site access and security.
"We haven't seen anything yet. We're waiting for a land development plan which will show us what is supposed to happen," Rich Wray, Cresson Township engineer, said from his office.
Wray said the township needs the development plan to show how Amfire will get to the one or more mine entrances, and about water and sewer services that will be needed.
"That is the first indication we've gotten that they'll be in Cresson Township," Wray said of the road-closing request. Earlier rumors that the portal would be in the Sankertown area are being put to rest.
"Sankertown is a mile away," Wray said of the span between Lilly Level Road and the small borough.
The mine is being developed in an area known as the Kozak farm, Eger said. It includes an area that was strip-mined 30 years ago by E.L.
Jones Coal Co., before part of the land was sold to PennDOT for the four-lane Route 22.
"This time, they're going deeper," he said.
The development plan should also include information regarding the size and land ownership for the portal. A lot of land could be needed for the portal, Budash said: Space for the portal itself, parking, a wash house and administration office.
One option that remains open, Budash said, is that a coal-cleaning plant will eventually be built at the mouth of the mine.
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