ELKINS — During Thursday’s Randolph County Commission meeting, President David Kesling talked about the impact the closing of the Carter Roag Coal Company’s Mill Creek locations will have on the county.

Late last week, United Coal Company LLC issued Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notices to more than 200 employees at Carter Roag’s Morgan Camp and Starbridge Plant. Both operations are located near Mill Creek.

Permanent layoffs are expected to continue until Carter Road eventually winds down operations at both its deep mine and plant.

“What happened in the county this week with Carter Roag is going to hurt everyone,” Kesling said. “Carter Roag was the last coal mine in the county and our hearts go out to its employees, all the suppliers, and the independent coal mine truck operators who are going to be affected by this.”

Carter Roag Coal Company has operated as a subsidiary of United Coal Company LLC since 2004. Since then the company has consistently employed between 136 and 269 employees.

“I’ve already instructed the assessor to check the impact on the county,” Kesling said. “And just from the machinery loss alone, it will be roughly about $176,000 in tax revenue we will lose.”

Kesling said the county’s coal severance fund, which the commission uses to provide money for many local projects, will be totally wiped out because of the closing of the coal mine.

“We have taken money from our coal severance line (item) to help with the pool project,” Kesling said. “We always planned on taking money from the coal that was mined in the county to help pay for the pool.

“Now we are going to be losing roughly $250,000 in coal severance money. And this is money that we have already budgeted in our budget. So now we are going to start July 1 with over a $400,000 short fall, because we will not have that machinery tax and our coal severance line.”

Carter Roag has produced high-volatile metallurgical Sewell coal for several decades, which is vital in the steel-making process.

“They produce high sulfur coal that is used in Ukraine for their steel mills,” Kesling said. “Russia destroyed the steel mills, so now the war in Ukraine has hit Randolph County in West Virginia.

“We are all interconnected and now there’s a strain on those families that lost their jobs, on all the people who were suppliers, and the county which will lose over $400,000. It has a big impact on this whole area. Our hearts go out to all of them and we hope they have success in finding another job.”