Saying goodbye to ‘black gold’
After following his father and grandfather into the pits of Germany’s Ruhr valley as a teenager, Andreas Schreiter’s family tradition will end when the country’s last hard-coal mine — the 150-year-old ProsperHaniel site — shuts this month.
The 46-year-old — who still has the first lump of “black gold” he dug himself in 1991 — will be among some 1,400 miners to make a final trip past the gently illuminated shrine to Saint Barbara, the patron of miners, at the colliery’s entrance. The facility was the last holdout of two centuries of deep-mining history but can’t survive after the government pulled the plug on one billion euros ($1.5 billion) in annual subsidies.
Shuttering the site is especially bitter for the local community because Germany will need to burn the fuel for decades to come. But instead of supporting mining families in the Ruhr valley, the coal will be shipped on boats and barges from places like Russia, the U.S. and Colombia.
“It’s the politicians that have decided to close this mine,” said Schreiter, who is struggling to figure out what to do after Prosper-Haniel ceases operation. “It hurts to think Germany will still be using coal.”
Environmental goals and the poor economics of German coal made the miner’s jobs expendable, even if it’s a blow for the people in Prosper-Haniel’s hometown of Bottrop and tears at the social fabric in Germany.
“Those wealthy Bavarians would still be walking cows up and down the mountainside if it wasn’t for the miners of the Ruhr,” said Bernd Tischler, Bottrop’s mayor. Like other rustbelt towns, support for the populist Alternative for Germany surged in last year’s federal election to 12 per cent to become the third-strongest party.
Even as active mining ceases, the vestiges of that history will still guarantee some employment to clean up and stabilize the empty shafts. More than 1,000 engineers will work to stop toxic discharge from seeping into the water supply and prevent houses, factories and entire hillsides from collapsing into the vacant cavities hundreds of metres below the surface.
Those losing their jobs at Prosper-Haniel will be retrained to do other work, unless they’re over 50 years old — then, they’ll be able to collect pensions immediately. Ramazan Atli, a 46-year-old ProsperHaniel veteran, will just miss out on early retirement and join a crew picking up discarded drills, helmets and other equipment in the abandoned tunnels.
“I suppose it’s time for me to do something else,” said Istanbul-born Atli, who followed his father into the coal shafts as a teenager in 1988. “But I’d gladly do every shift again and will really miss the lads and the camaraderie.”