Confrontation in Ohio

Carrying hand-lettered placards of protest, nearly 3,000 residents of an Ohio Valley coal-mining area pressed into a hotel ballroom in the town of St. Clairsville in a concerned and angry mood last week. The subject of the meeting, set up by the Environmental Protection Agency: an antipollution rule that has caused a classic conflict involving the competing needs for clean air, jobs and profits.

Ohio has a problem with sulfur dioxide air pollution, and the EPA has ordered its utilities to meet strict limits on smokestack emissions. But to burn Ohio's high-sulfur coal, say the companies, would necessitate installing expensive scrubbing devices. They rebelled at the cost; one utility reckoned that compliance with the EPA order could cause a 24% rise in electric rates. Instead, the companies said, they would import low-sulfur coal from Western or Appalachian states. That in turn riled the miners, who argue that if the utilities buy out-of-state coal, demand for Ohio coal will fall by as much as 30% and 12,500 people will be out of work.

The miners want relief under an amendment to the 1977 Clean Air Act sponsored by Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum. This empowers the President, on an EPA recommendation, to force utilities to burn local coal and still meet pollution standards when other measures (like using out-of-state coal) would cause "economic disruption." Whoever finally wins, someone must lose: either electricity users, miners or the living, breathing residents of Ohio.

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