Coal

Linthicum Heights-based Foundation Coal Holdings Inc. and its affiliates have struck a deal with the United Mine Workers of America, ending a weeklong strike at mines in Pennsylvania. An agreement also was reached with workers at its Wabash mine in Keensburg, Ill., which Foundation Coal shuttered April 4 after the union announced that workers there and at the two Pennsylvania mines would strike. Foundation Coal said it was no longer financially feasible to keep the Wabash mine open, after it posted a $26 million loss last year.

BARTON -- Everyone seems to know everyone else -- or their family -- in this small mountain town nestled in the George's Creek Valley of Western Maryland. And since Tuesday, nearly everyone has been at least a little on edge waiting for news about two coal miners buried under thousands of tons of rock and dirt. With each passing day, slender hopes are dwindling. "I think we just feel bad for the families," said Jennifer Brandlen, who was tending bar yesterday at the American Legion Hall.

NATIONAL 8 attorney firings discussed Long before they fired a group of U.S. attorneys, senior White House and Justice department officials were already discussing some politically connected insiders for their replacements, documents released yesterday show, undercutting earlier claims that the prosecutors were terminated for purely performance reasons. pg 3A N.J. governor possibly broke law Gov. Jon Corzine was apparently riding without a seat belt, in violation of state law, when he was critically injured in the crash of his official vehicle, a spokesman said yesterday.

BIG COAL River Valley, W. Va. -- Standing in the kitchen of his family's home in their beautiful and tranquil hollow, Jim Wills told me of a nightmare he had as a child, one that still baffles him.Forty years later, it seems a mysterious omen of what was to come. In his sleep, young Jim saw a towering piece of earth-moving equipment astride the mountaintop near his home like some giant science-fiction robot menacing the valley below.Wills' dream has come to pass, though so far his hollow has been spared.

Just south of Riegelsville, Pa., the Delaware Canal towpath we were biking swept close enough to Route 611 to see the yellow numbers on the big digital sign outside First Savings Bank.The time flashed: 11:30 in the morning. Then the temperature: 95 degrees.We'd picked an early June day for our 35-mile, mountain-bike ride between Easton and New Hope, and we were getting the worst kind of August weather. Still, the three of us agreed, as hot as it was -- and we'd already sweated at least a quart of Gatorade apiece -- the riding thus far had been pleasant.

Greener development better approach for western MarylandI wholeheartedly support House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr's exhortation to create 2,000 new jobs for depressed Western Maryland ("Taylor exhorts 2 western counties to create 2,000 jobs next year," May 21).However, I take exception to his recommendation that we do this largely by exploiting natural resources.Increasing logging and coal mining on state lands and burning more of Maryland's high-sulfur coal would leave the land impoverished, the air dirtier and the region's natural diversity greatly diminished.

WASHINGTON -- In an overture with potentially far-reaching implications, Republican lawmakers sought yesterday to join Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, in trying to preserve the rights of mining companies to dump waste that environmentalists say causes pollution.Under a deal being discussed last night, the Republicans would back Byrd in his effort to overturn a federal judge's ruling that would curb the practice of mining coal from mountaintops and then dumping rock waste into streams and valleys in West Virginia.

Two of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s power plants released more than 14 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air last year, likely making it Maryland's top polluter.The amount dwarfs the figures of the top polluters of 1997, the Westvaco paper products company in Western Maryland and Millennium Inorganics, a Baltimore chemical company.Although the power company's numbers are included in a report to be released next month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its national Toxic Release Inventory, BGE announced them yesterday, as did other utilities throughout the country.

KEMPTON -- Less than two years ago, the swamp near this abandoned coal-mining town at the southern tip of Garrett County was a bright orange, discolored by acid discharges from the coal mine that gave the town its name. Nearby Laurel Run, a tributary of the North Branch of the Potomac River, was dead. No fish, no plants, no bacterial life could survive the acid flowing from the mines.After a $290,000 reclamation project and continuing treatment programs, the swamp is covered with grass and trees, and fish have started to poke back into the mouth of Laurel Run. It is an example of how far Maryland's efforts to reclaim abandoned mines has come -- and a sign of how far it has to go.Kempton Mine, which covers more than 2 1/2 times the area of Deep Creek Lake under the Maryland and West Virginia mountains, is the worst contributor to ground-water pollution of the abandoned mines that honeycomb these hills.

BALTIMORE GAS and Electric Co. will finally stop using the recyclable residue from the coal-burning operation at its northern Anne Arundel County business park. That decision should end an old dispute.The utility and its neighbors have battled for years over fly ash, the powdery gray substance that results when the utility burns coal at its Brandon Shores and H. A. Wagner power plants.BGE has used four tons of the substance as fill at the nearby business park since 1982.Neighbors argued that the fly ash dirties porches and threatens underground water and public health.

Baltimore County firefighters and emergency responders extricated a man Friday night who had fallen about 120 feet into a coal silo at a Constellation Energy power plant in Bowleys Quarters, a Fire Department spokeswoman said. The confined-space rescue began at 6:13 p.m. at the facility, in the 1000 block of Carroll Island Road, according to the spokeswoman, Lt. Lynn Mullahey. Specialized units were able to remove the man, who had been contracted to perform work in the silo, by 9:01 p.m., she said.

The fight over the proposed buyout of a huge, Maryland-based coal mining company is interesting for its own sake. Wall Street egos, including a hedge-fund manager and would-be buyer of the Pittsburgh Steelers, are battling over control of the country's fourth-biggest coal producer. But the contest for Linthicum Heights-based Foundation Coal, which comes to a vote Friday, sheds light beyond Wall Street and the job of extracting soft black rocks from the Appalachian ground. It's no less than a referendum on the future of energy, the environment and the American economy.

$18.9 million awarded for stem cell research in Md. The Maryland Technology Development Corp. awarded $18.9 million this week to dozens of researchers involved in stem cell research at private and public institutions across the state. The state has been formally funding stem cell research since legislators passed the Maryland Stem Cell Research Act of 2006. Stem cell research is widely regarded as having the potential to deliver groundbreaking cures to a broad range of health problems and help fuel the state's efforts to become a hub for the biotechnology industry.

On Sept. 23, 1908, a portion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge span between Garrett Island and the Cecil shore collapsed just as the last of a freight train of loaded coal cars passed over. One span of 377 feet across the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace and all the falsework supporting the bridge structure fell into the deep water. Twelve coal cars at the end of the train dropped into the river, but the locomotive had successfully crossed and remained intact. Only one person was injured.

Anti-disease partnership looks for Frederick site FREDERICK: The National Cancer Institute and Science Applications International Corp. have formed a partnership on disease research and are looking for a Frederick campus. SAIC-Frederick Public Affairs Director Frank Blanchard said the partnership needs about a 7.5-acre site near Fort Detrick. NCI and SAIC will work together on cancer research and treatment after the facility is commissioned in 2010. Blanchard said the partnership aims to provide faster cancer treatment at lower cost.

Laura E. Parker, co-founder and secretary-treasurer of a family-owned Ellicott City fuel company, died of cancer Aug. 26 at her West Friendship home. She was 91. Born and raised in Finksburg, Laura Elizabeth Bond graduated in 1934 from Westminster High School. "She grew up in an old tollhouse that was on the Westminster Pike and dated to the 1800s," said a daughter, Elizabeth "Betsy" O'Donnell of Ellicott City. In 1936, she married Jason Avery Parker Sr., a Bloomingdale Coal Co. truck driver.

LUKE -- The NewPage paper mill in Western Maryland burns 1,400 tons of coal a day to transform rough logs into rivers of shiny white paper for glossy catalogues such as Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma. Another product: 1.9 million metric tons a year of carbon dioxide, a gas that scientists have concluded causes global warming. A bill being considered in Annapolis today would require businesses across the state to cut their average emissions of pollutants that cause global warming by 25 percent by 2020 and by 90 percent by 2050.

Appointments Fred Jacobs, a senior vice president for the consulting firm AKRF Inc., has been named to a post on the Maryland State Water Quality Advisory Committee. Awards The West Virginia Coal Association presented Foundation Coal Holdings Inc., based in Linthicum Heights, with two Mountaineer Guardian safety awards for its operations at Laurel Creek Mine 5 and the Paynter Branch Mine. Contracts Merkle, a Lanham-based database marketing agency, signed a three-year multimillion-dollar deal with the American Heart Association to provide analytical insight, segmentation and contact optimization for donor renewal and acquisition plans.

At Consol Energy's terminal on the Canton waterfront, coal trains still arrive daily, dumping their load on a mounting stockpile that's now swollen to about a half-million tons. Beyond, on the Patapsco, a barge-mounted pile driver echoes like repetitive cannon fire, slamming 100-foot steel pilings into the river bed as the company races to make structural repairs to the port's largest coal pier. The abrupt shutdown of the 1,300-foot-long pier early this month for emergency repairs all but halted coal shipments from the port of Baltimore, where it's the second-largest export commodity.

Advertising Warschawski promoted Andrea DiRuscio to senior associate at the Baltimore-based public relations and marketing firm. She is responsible for client servicing, strategic planning, campaign development, media relations and account management. Profiles Inc. announced that Mia Catalfamo joined the staff of the Hampden public relations agency as a junior account executive. Education Villa Julie College selected Brenda Balzer as its new vice president of human resources. Health care Katzen Eye Group appointed Dr. Tania S. Marcic as director of glaucoma services for the private eye care practice.