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HOMER CITY, Pennsylvania — On March 22 at 7 a.m., Shawn Steffee stood on a hill overlooking the Homer City Generating Station with his family and the community he grew up with. They were all looking at Pennsylvania's largest coal-fired power plant for the last time — the plant he and his father, uncles, brother and the union he had guided had all worked at for decades.
Steffee, the business manager for Boilermakers Local No. 154, whose labor force was one of several at the plant, told the Washington Examiner the effect of the plant closure, announced two years ago, would be devastating not just to his union but to the community he grew up in.
"It is not just job losses; it is a major tax revenue loss for the school district that I grew up in, and now it will be gone," Steffee said.
And then, by the morning of March 22, the tallest smokestack in the United States was gone.
The sound of the Unit 3 smokestack coming down was thunderous. The imagery was gutting; people in the community and anyone who recognized the 1,217-foot smokestacks as part of the local skyline for decades were reminded that an era had ended.
Steffee said it wasn't easy watching it fall. "But I had to be there and see it," he said flatly.
The tower had stood there since 1977, and the plant since 1969. This coal-fired power plant was the victim of politics, competition and environmental regulations whose goalposts seemed to change daily. With all three putting so much pressure on the coal industry, operating and making a profit became untenable.
When it was fully operational, the 1,900-megawatt plant could power over 2 million homes and buildings.
There are rumors that a natural gas-fired power-generating facility to support an artificial intelligence data processing plant is in the works. If that all comes to pass, it would be the largest gas-fired power plant in the U.S. But no one has confirmed that just yet.
Pennsylvania State Sen. Joe Pittman hinted at that in a statement, saying while it was sad to see such a significant part of history fade into history books, "it's also very exciting that we have an opportunity to redevelop the site with economic opportunity while reinventing our future.
"We have a unique opportunity to see the site cleaned up and rebuilt with billions of dollars of private-sector investment," Pittman continued. "Those dollars, and the jobs associated with rebuilding and operating a future economic force in our community, provide hope for a new and vibrant future for the community, the school district, the county and the region."
Steffee said he was also hopeful. But he kept everything else close to the vest.
In truth, both labor and the community have had their hopes dashed before.
Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future, said the demise of Homer City meant enormous electricity capacity would be lost forever. The people of Pennsylvania, he believes, will only be worse off as a result: "Nothing can replace this, not wind, not solar, and the green activists responsible for such terrible decisions will move on to their next victim."
Not all that long ago, there were 60 coal-fired generating units in Pennsylvania. As of today, there are only 15 left.
Turner says it is pure un-American insanity to shut down responsible coal while turning a blind eye to China, which builds the equivalent of a coal plant a week. "It's the intellectual equivalent of putting your dog on a treadmill and claiming you're getting healthy because of the machine's readout."
Turner said "the greens" are never satiated with the closure of a plant. They must destroy.
"It wasn't enough to close the plant," he said. "It had to be imploded so it may never operate again, just as statues of Teddy Roosevelt must be destroyed so that Americans can never know its past or his role in our history. And they won. No one will ever build another plant in Homer City. Democrats are too beholden to green groups. Republicans rarely have the backbone. Only the local people suffer with job loss, revenue loss, school closure, higher utility costs. ... We are making more depressed communities to appease a green agenda run by billionaires in New York City."
Fifty percent of U.S. electricity was generated from coal in 2005. That number has since dropped to 20%.
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Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between.