Aug 29, 2025 1 min read

I winced when I saw the headline “Celebrating Coal” in the Aug. 25 edition. There is nothing to celebrate.

We will never hear it from our Washington County state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, but the fact is that coal is an energy source of the past, this notwithstanding efforts by the Trump administration to place a thumb on the scale for it as efforts are underway to destroy the ability to produce cheaper clean energy. The slide of the coal industry is evidenced by the number of individuals who work in the industry, which has consistently plunged over a period of many years.

Coal does grave harm to the environment and it brings misery and early death to those who work underground, an astounding number of whom have been diagnosed with insidious black lung disease.

Let us find the means for laborers to make a good living above-ground in positions in which they need not sacrifice their health and risk their lives every day that they go to work.

Oren Spiegler

Peters Township