From: "WASHINGTON GEOLOGY VOL. 30, NO. 1/2 JULY 2002"
Henry W. Schasse
Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources
PO Box 47007; Olympia, WA 98504-7007
Coal production from Washington s two coal mines was up from a year ago. The Centralia Mine in north-central Lewis County and the John Henry No.1 Mine in south-central King County produced a total of 4,624,495 short clean tons of coal, 354,131 tons more than in 2000.
The state s largest coal mine, the Centralia Coal Mine, is located 5 miles northeast of Centralia (Fig. 1). The mine is totally dedicated to supplying coal to the Centralia Steam Plant.
The steam plant is located a mile from the coal mine and is operated by TransAlta Centralia Generation LLC. TransAlta, a Canadian corporation, took over ownership of the Centralia Mine in May of 2000. The mine was formerly owned and operated by PacifiCorp.
The Centralia Mine completed its 31st year of production in 2001, producing 4,624,245 short tons of subbituminous coal, 354,481 tons more than it produced in 2000. The mine s average annual production over the last 5 years was 4.4 million tons per year; average annual production over the life of the mine was 4.3 million tons per year. Officials of TransAlta Centralia are planning to increase annual production at the mine to more than 5 million tons per year and are looking at another 25 years of production from the mine.
Coal production in 2001 at the Centralia Mine came from 4 open pits. Coalbeds mined were the Upper and Lower Thompson, the Big Dirty and Little Dirty seams, and the Smith seam.
These coalbeds are part of the Skookumchuck Formation, which is composed of nearshore marine and nonmarine sedimentary rocks. The Skookumchuck is the upper member of the Eocene Puget Group.
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