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1970-1979 their workforce approach retirement. Management knew those numbers would increase throughout the decade. With coal production costs rising due to more stringent regulations and with other fuels also become more expensive, Flowers declared in his August 1970 editorial that "the era of cheap energy may be coming to an end. There are restrictive regulations that hamper coal production, the public clamors for pollution abatement, the rail- roads cannot provide enough cars to haul coal, wildcat strikes continue and labor shortages plague the coal industry…The public, which as grown accustomed to con- suming electric power in larger and larger gulps at lower and lower cost per kilowatt, must face up to the fact each new restric- tion on either the fuel producer or the pow- er plant will make it impossible to deliver electric energy at today's low cost." At a moment when an example of proper coordination was needed, Coal Age returned to the massive Chestnut Ridge energy complex in the October 1970 issue to showcase how planned effi- ciencies can actually come together. The subject of several articles in the late 1960s, for the 1970 Model Mining Number, Flowers celebrated how energy for millions of Americans was being cre- ated in this one small area. "One of the world's largest concentrations of new generating stations—Conemaugh, Homer City and Keystone—has been built on top of the Chestnut Ridge reserves and receive their coal from adja- cent deep mines." With roughly 12 billion tons of bituminous reserves, "coal also moves from the area by unit train to other generating stations, and soon will be going to the new Montour plant now under construction." Combined, the six Top 10 Coal Producers, 1974 (millions of tons) Peabody Group Consolidation Coal Island Creek Amax Pittston U.S. Steel Arch Mineral Bethlehem Mines North American Peter Kiewit Total U.S. Production August 2012 68.1 51.8 20.8 19.9 17.4 16.4 13.9 13.3 9.8 9.7 516.0 stations were capable of generating more than 6,500,000 kW per hour and would consume some 17 million tpy. But "this coal-energy explosion did not just hap- pen. It came about rather as the result of foresighted managements of coal pro- ducers and investor-owned utilities. And it goes back nearly a decade." Stability, in other words, takes planning and, as the national energy system was being built out, sustainable, realistic policies needed to be created in order to avert the loom- ing energy crisis. As the year ended, a short rail strike cut production back a few million tons. Add wildcat strikes throughout the beginning of the year, and labor continued to be the biggest drag on production—though it con- tinued to soar. However, "the impact of the new federal health and safety law became apparent in 1970, with some operators of deep mines reporting significant increases in costs and corresponding decreases in productivity. Hardest hit were the older mines that sometimes required major changes in ventilation or equipment. Complying with the new law while keeping costs down could be one of the toughest challenges the industry has faced." The manpower crisis showed no signs of diminishing in 1970 and, if anything grew worse. "For the foreseeable future, this problem will be of major concern for man- agement. Only an all-out effort, by individ- ual companies and the industry as a whole, will bring the needed workers." In the January 1971 issue, the magazine reprinted part of a college advertising campaign by AMAX designed to attract student mining engineers. Surface Mining Comes Under Fire Just after Christmas 1970, West Virginia's Secretary of State, John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV announced a campaign to ban the sur- face mining of coal "completely and forev- er" throughout the state. Key West Virginia lawmakers pledged their support when the legislature convened in late January. Much of the political establishment "jumped on the popular ecological bandwagon" as did the influential Charleston Gazette which backed Rockefeller completely. By February, legislation seemed like a done deal. But the industry fought back. Faced with a public battle, the West Virginia Surface Mine Association hired Alexander Co., a New York Public Relations firm to design, create and deploy a series of televi- sion commercials as part of a larger cam- 100th Anniversary Special Issue www.coalage.com 123