German Hard-Coal Production to Cease by 2018

The end of the subsidies won't affect Germany's mining of lignite, or brown coal. That industry, which is concentrated in the eastern half of the country, remains profitable and relies on surface mining techniques.

The deal to shut down the hard-coal industry is predicated on a pledge by lawmakers and Deutsche Steinkohle to avoid layoffs. Under present rules, miners are eligible to retire with full pension benefits at age 49 if they've logged 25 years underground. Those with less experience are guaranteed placement in jobs in other sectors or extensive retraining.

Deutsche Steinkohle has already reduced its workforce by more than half over the past decade and expects to shed another 20,000 jobs by 2012 but won't resort to layoffs, said Christof Beike, a company spokesman. "We promise that no one will end up unemployed," he said.

Mining executives had lobbied to continue the subsidies indefinitely but agreed to the phaseout. "To be honest, we have to accept this," said Franz-Josef Wodopia, an executive board member of the German Hardcoal Mining Association, a trade group. "It's a socially acceptable way to reduce the capacity of the industry. It is the best exit we could hope for."

Communities in the Ruhr whose economies have long been intertwined with the coal industry are bracing for the end.

In Bottrop, a city of 20,000 people that is home to one of the remaining mines, Mayor Peter Noetzel said the local economy has rebounded recently after years of recession, making it easier to swallow additional job losses than in the past.

"It's not as upsetting for people today," he said, "as it was in the 1960s," referring to job reductions at a time when virtually everyone in Bottrop depended on coal for their livelihood. Then, the city had eight mines with 20,000 workers.

Still, he and others are hoping their last mine, which employs 4,000 people, will somehow stay open. "As far as 2018 is concerned, it doesn't mean the end of hard-coal mining necessarily, but just the end of the subsidies," Noetzel said.

For others, the end of the industry can't come soon enough.

Hard-coal mining has inflicted severe environmental damage on the Ruhr. Centuries of digging have removed so much coal and rock that the ground level across the region has slowly but irreversibly dropped, by as much as 65 feet in some places.

Enormous sinkholes have developed, stretching for miles. Entire cities now lie below the water table and are kept dry by elaborate pumping systems and levees. This technology diverts rivers and creeks uphill, and many of them are filled with wastewater from the mines.

Unlike U.S. coal fields, which are generally located in rural areas, the Ruhr is a sprawling metropolis with about 5.4 million residents, making the environmental costs exponentially higher. Cracked building foundations and buckled asphalt are common.

The German government and Deutsche Steinkohle have agreed to set aside about $7 billion for cleanup costs and to pay for the massive pumps, which must operate in perpetuity.

Klaus Wagner, a spokesman for an environmental protection group based in the town of Dorsten, estimated the environmental damage at closer to $25 billion.

"These are sums you can't even put a figure on, because there are so many problems," he said. "The very best you could do is to stabilize the environmental problems at the level they are now, but you can't solve them."