A Washington State Coal Plant Has to Close Next Year. Can Pennsylvania Communities Learn From Centralias Transition? [Video]

This story was produced as part of Climate Solutions, a collaboration focused on community engagement and solutions-based reporting to help Central Pennsylvania move toward climate literacy, resilience and adaptation. StateImpact Pennsylvania convened the collaboration; WITF is a Climate Solutions partner. Other Climate Solutions partners are Franklin & Marshall Center for Public Opinion, La Voz Latina, Sankofa African American Theatre Company, Shippensburg University, Q’Hubo News, and the York Daily Record. 

Edna Fund remembers what Centralia, Washington was like in the 1960s, before the coal mine and power plant opened. 

She and a friend drove to the site a few miles from the city, where they were going to college. 

It was all farmland. Owners were selling their land to make way for industry.

Years later, she would visit the site again as an elected official.