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Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire by David DeKok
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Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire by David DeKok
Centralia Today
A Photo Documentary of Centralia today.
Mine fire still rages beneath tiny town
Lanna Mervine is happy to make her home
in Centralia, the central Pennsylvania community that in most ways no longer
exists.
"It's nicer now than it ever was," said Mervine, one of the 42 residents who
remain in the Columbia County town ravaged for decades by an underground mine
fire. "It's like a big park."
Centralia may be park-like, but only because all but 30 of the 500 houses and
businesses that once stood there have been erased and replaced by fields. Gone,
too, are most of the 1,300 Centralians who lived there until 1985, when the
federal government bought their houses.
Fourteen years later, the Centralia Mine Fire still burns. As many as 450 acres
might be burning now - up from the 350 the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection estimated in the mid-1980s.
"It's cooking right along, just like it has been for years," said Steve Jones of
the DEP.
The state agency continues to monitor the fire each quarter and to respond to
reports of new sinkholes or fire outbreaks. "But we don't send staff up there
unaccompanied for safety reasons," Jones said.
Ultimately, as much as 3,000 acres could be consumed by fire. Nearby towns are
not believed to be threatened because the coal outcrop, or area where the coal
seam ends, ultimately will stop the raging fire.
In 1983 a study estimated it would cost $663 million to extinguish what some
call "the grandaddy" of all mine fires. One year later, Congress set aside $42
million to acquire homes and businesses and relocate residents because of the
dangers the Centralia fire presented.
The exodus ensued: Between 1985 and 1991, more than 540 homes and businesses
were relocated.
Today, ask for directions to Centralia in neighboring Ashland, and an old-timer
quips, "Where can you get buried and then cremated for free? Why the cemetery in
Centralia, of course!"
Claude Downing of the Office of Surface Mining, for one, will never forget that
cemetery. "It was more eerie than anything else," Downing said, recalling his
visit to Centralia in the early 1980s. "Flames were shooting out above the
tombstones in the cemetery. I was not prepared for that. This was an image that
you just don't ever forget."
Today, no flames are visible on the surface but visitors see plain evidence of
the fire. Fields and smoking hillsides are littered with burnt, bleached-white
or scorched-black trees and smoldering stumps.
The fire is easy to smell, too. Sulfuric smoke pours out of cracks in the earth
and lingers in the air.
The main highway into town, Route 61, is barricaded to traffic - the reason
obvious during a walk down the deserted, curving road. An earthquake-like fault
splits the asphalt and steady smoke streams from the surface. Near the crack,
the heat from the fire easily can be felt.
Welcome to Centralia - population 42 and falling. But the people, mostly
elderly, who remain there don't plan on moving. Instead, they're fighting the
federal government's claim of eminent domain on the properties that remain.
"We don't own our home. We don't even pay taxes any more," explained Lamar
Mervine, Lanna Mervine's husband, mayor of Centralia and lifelong town resident.
But the Mervines aren't happy about that.
"This fire has been burning for 36 years and it's never harmed anyone," he said.
"We like it here. This is the nicest town in the region. And there is no reason
for us to move. None whatsoever."
But DEP believes the remaining Centralians should move because the area is an
unsafe place to live. Dangerous sinkholes exist, with the potential for more
subsidence at any moment. And there are toxic fumes to contend with, as well as
the heat and damage the fire has created.
"Our main interest is in the health and welfare of those people who are still
living there," said Lauren Cotter, a spokesperson with the Pennsylvania
Department of Community and Economic Development in Harrisburg. The state agency
is serving as a liaison between Centralia residents and the federal government.
The Mervines don't believe the government is looking out for their best
interests or their safety in wanting them to move. They've recently hired a new
attorney to try to help them win the battle to stay in their beloved town.
"There's 40 million tons of coal still under this town and Centralia Borough
still owns the mineral rights," Lamar Mervine said. "I think (the government)
wants to go back and mine it out. The coal companies are probably pushing to get
in here."
Cotter said the state isn't interested in any coal rights, and that if the town
of Centralia were to be dissolved, the rights likely would be transferred to the
town or county it merges with.
Thus far, the remaining residents have resisted the government's firm, but
patient, demands they leave - even after the state Supreme Court ruled against
the property owners' objection to condemnation procedures in 1995.
"The fight is over," Jones said. "They exhausted their last appeal a long time
ago. They have nowhere else to go in the legal system."
They appear not to be going anywhere else either. "So far we're holding our
own," Lamar Mervine said.
"It was a shame. It was a shame," said Jerry "Slavi" Wysochansky, about what
happened to Centralia. Although Wysochansky moved out of town in 1990, he
returns frequently to see his friends who gather regularly at what once was the
center of the community.
"This used to be a town," Wysochansky said. "There were five churches, seven
saloons, a school, bank, store and post office. Right here where we are sitting
was a hotel."
Now there is nothing. Just a brightly painted yellow bench that sits next to the
red, heart-shaped sign that reads "We Love Centralia."
By Lynne Glover, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
|
If
you were driving north on route 61 in the heart of the Anthracite coal region in Pennsylvania, you may have come across a detour of 61 at the top of a hill in a
community called Ashland. Thinking nothing of it you would have followed the detour signs that took you around some possible road construction or a bridge being worked on. You're then reconnected with Rt. 61 again. 
As
time passed, each feeble attempt to do anything to stop the fire or help the
residents of Centralia would cost more and more due to the fires progression.
Over 44 years and 40 million dollars later the fire still burns through old coal
mines and veins under the town and the surrounding hillsides on several fronts.
The fire, smoke, fumes and toxic gases that came up through the back yards,
basements and streets of Centralia literally ripped the town apart. Most of the
homes were condemned and residents were relocated over the years with grants
from the federal government although some die-hards refused to be bought out and
some still remain in the town. Today Centralia is a virtual ghost town with only
a few remaining residents. As they continue to live in their beloved homes now
owned by the federal government, people pass every day along Route 61, most
totally unaware of the history surrounding them and the sad story of Centralia.
