Energy secretary visits co-gen plant, mine lands touting federal energy policy
MOREA – The country’s top energy official visited northern Schuylkill County this week to tour active mine lands and a power station overlooking the Mahanoy Valley.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s visit marked the first time a member of the President’s Cabinet visited the Shenandoah area since 2004, when George W. Bush’s Interior Secretary visited the abandoned Shen Penn site.
At the Gilberton Power Co. plant near Morea, Wright touted President Donald Trump’s energy policies. The visit was part of the “Great American Energy Comeback” tour and also included active mine lands affiliated with the Rich Family of Companies
“What we want to promote is to harvest the resources you have to make your people better off, to make your economy better off and help us reindustrialize America,” Wright said. “Pennsylvania was the birthplace of industrial power in the United States, very early in this region with critical anthracite coal mining.”
Wright was joined by Pennsylvania Republican Congressmen Dan Meuser, Ryan Mackenzie, and Rob Bresnahan.
The Gilberton Power Co. plant is one of two in the valley and several in eastern Pennsylvania reusing waste coal, or culm, left behind from well over a century of mining activity. Both local plants are operated by the Rich Family of Companies, the other being the Schuylkill Energy Resources plant at Yatesville.
Fly ash from the plants have been used for mine reclamation in the Mahanoy City area.
Wright also emphasized the importance of anthracite coal in the steelmaking industry.