Usibelli a good neighbor

To the editor:

I am writing this letter in regards to coal mining, which may start up again in the Valley.

I moved to the Valley in 1948, attended Palmer High School and lived at the Jonesville Mine with my mother and step-dad. While going to school I worked after school and summers in the mess hall.

After graduating from school I went to work at the Jonesville Coal Mine as above-ground labor. The company was very good to work for. If you were interested in learning a trade they encouraged it. I learned to be an equipment operator, certified welder and heavy equipment repair. I used these skills all my life — two years in New Zealand running a heavy equipment repair shop and for Denali park shop.

My family and I spent 20 years in the Healy/Denali Park area. We built a home just south of the park in what became known at McKinley Village. I organized a fire department there and also helped organize one in Healy (Tri-Valley). When we got the department going, Joe Usibelli Sr. offered to put fittings on a large water tank truck (20,000 to 30,000 gallons) that could be hooked to the fire trucks. They used this truck to water down the roads and work sites of the mine. Usibelli would respond to a fire if requested, therefore giving the department a large supply of water.

Another time the community of Anderson, which is north of Healy, had an ice jam in a river below the community and was about to flood. The state stood around talking about it. In the meantime, Usibelli directed his crew to load up a CAT on the lowboy truck and go up and break the ice jam.

Usibellli Co. would not hire a student right out of school for a two-year period, therefore giving students time to make up their minds on a career. Some went to college and came back as engineers. Some went to trade schools and came back as welders, equipment operators and equipment repairs. This is about as close to local hire as you can come.

I feel the Usibelli Coal Mine is about as good a neighbor that the Valley could get. Right now, the Mat-Su Borough is supporting a ferry that has no place to dock and costing us money. Also, for a dock that had two ships that docked there last year. One was for a test run on loading coal. We have a prison that has never had a prisoner in it yet. We are paying for this.

We need a good-paying industry to help cut down on all the cars headed to Anchorage in the morning and home at night.

As far as wind in the Valley, the Healy Valley probably gets as much or more and the mine is only about two miles from the Denali National Park boundary, which has an air monitoring station along the park boundary. I have never heard a complaint of the coal dust from the Park Service.

My son owned a home and raised a family within a mile of a Usibelli Coal crushing plant and three-quarters of a mile from the train loading dock for 12 years. I asked him if coal dust was ever a problem and he said no. The only dust he had was from the Nenana River, which flowed by his home.

Talk about dust from the sand that is put on the Valley roads in the winter; the roadways’ snow is brown and when it dries out in the spring is picked up and blown in the air we breathe. I assume that this sand has silicate particles in it and like a bag of sandblasting sand, is very harmful to one’s lungs.

We need jobs!

Patrick O’Connor

Palmer