The Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal-state economic development organization, classifies 93 of 420 counties in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia as financially distressed, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Many utilities have replaced Appalachian coal with cheaper fuel from Illinois and the Powder River basin in Wyoming and Montana, or switched to burning natural gas. Coal’s share of electricity generation in the U.S. will fall to 35 percent this year, from 50 percent a decade ago, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal production is expected to fall to less than 914 million tons, the lowest in 29 years. The number of active pits in the U.S. has plunged 39 percent from the end of 2005 through June 2015. Most of Appalachian counties’ lost revenue comes from a drop in payments known as severance taxes, which mining companies pay into state coffers based on the value of coal tonnage taken from the earth. West Virginia’s Boone County got about $2 million this year, down from almost $6 million in 2011, says Commissioner Mickey Brown. In Kentucky, severance money paid to counties totaled $23.4 million in 2015, compared with $62 million five years ago. Letcher County’s quarterly severance checks dropped to $200,000, from about $700,000 two years ago.
