Lee County’s coal mines have not reported a ton of coal to federal regulators since 2013. In 2000 they reported 941,256 tons. By The Lee Daily Register’s count from the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s public data files, downloaded Oct. 31, the last output was 36,990 tons in 2013, from one underground mine. Mines the agency places in Lee County reported none in each of the 12 years from 2014 through 2025.
Employment tells the same story. Operators reported an average of 290 coal-mine workers in 2000 and 15 in 2025. Limestone quarries, three of them active, now account for 44 mine jobs in the county, nearly three times coal’s total.
From four producing mines to none
Virginia Energy’s annual tonnage list, which it calls the Blue Book, has no county column. The federal mine file does, so we matched every Virginia mine to its federal county code and added up what operators reported in the yearly production file.
| Year | Coal reported (tons) | Mines reporting tons | Coal-mine workers | Quarry workers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 941,256 | 4 | 290 | 38 |
| 2005 | 324,175 | 3 | 236 | 40 |
| 2010 | 222,423 | 4 | 234 | 39 |
| 2013 | 36,990 | 1 | 108 | 30 |
| 2014 | 0 | 0 | 91 | 30 |
| 2019 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 28 |
| 2024 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 38 |
| 2025 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 44 |
From 2000 through 2013, Lee reported 5.36 million tons, about 1.5% of the state’s and the smallest total of the six coal counties. Russell County’s was 15.2 million.
Who is still on the job
Of the 15 coal-mine workers counted for 2025, 13 were in preparation-plant areas, where mined coal is cleaned. One was an office worker and one worked at the surface of an underground mine. None were counted underground, compared with 38 of 108 in 2013. The file does not say where the coal those plants handle was mined.
Quarry employment passed coal’s in 2019, when MSHA counted 28 quarry workers and 23 in coal. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures differently, counting private employers classed as mining. Its county file shows those jobs averaging 145 in 2014, 38 in 2024 and 64 in 2025.
What the state’s list and permit map show
Virginia Energy’s coal page names Lee among six counties where coal is “currently produced.” We could not reconcile that with MSHA’s twelve zero years. The one Lee mine we could match with confidence, by name and company, shows zero tons in the Blue Book for every year from 2014 through 2025.
The department’s coal permit map lists 245 permit boundaries statewide. Eighteen are in Lee, one shared with Wise, covering about 6,100 acres counting the whole shared permit, roughly a tenth of the layer’s acreage. By the map’s own labels, two are active, and both list a preparation plant among their permit types. Eight are “active, not producing” and two are in temporary cessation. The other six carry labels such as inactive, reclaimed, quarterly or process-not-producing. Statewide, 46 permits are labeled active.
MSHA’s database holds 247 coal mine records for Lee since 1970, 240 of them abandoned. Only Buchanan, Wise and Dickenson list more. The other seven are two active preparation plants, two nonproducing sites and three idled underground mines.
Coal money in the county’s books
The county’s audited statements list coal severance revenue in two places: a General Fund line and a separate Coal Road Improvement Fund. Fiscal years end June 30.
| Fiscal year | General Fund coal severance | Coal Road Improvement Fund |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | no line | $4,535 |
| 2018 | no line | $5,132 |
| 2019 | $19,163 | $7,416 |
| 2020 | $59,464 | $75,477 |
| 2021 | no line | $1,099 |
| 2022 | no line | $4,396 |
| 2023 | $12,435 | $17,418 |
| 2024 | $0 | $2,458 |
Combined, the two lines peaked at $134,941 in fiscal 2020. In fiscal 2024 they came to $2,458, against $34.1 million of General Fund revenue, per the fiscal 2024 audit. The audits do not say where the payments came from, and MSHA lists no Lee tons in those years. The General Fund revenue list in the proposed fiscal 2026-27 budget has no coal line; its severance entry is $3,500 for oil and gas.
Old mines still on the cleanup map
Virginia’s abandoned mine land program runs on federal grants funded by a fee on each ton of coal mined, according to Virginia Energy. The layers we pulled from its online map have no county field, so we laid its layers over the Census Bureau’s Lee County outline.
Of the map’s 704 project-site outlines, 52 lie entirely inside Lee and six more cross its line. Buchanan has 250, Wise 174, Dickenson 61, Russell 31 and Tazewell 30. Of 637 problem areas, 10 sit wholly in Lee and 10 more touch it. The layers do not say what each project was or when it was done, so these are counts of footprints, not of dollars or finished jobs.
What these records cannot settle
The two tonnage sources do not always agree. For the mine that produced last, MSHA’s file shows 36,990 tons in 2013, while the Blue Book shows 67,200. Contractors report to MSHA separately, and their file is organized by contractor rather than by mine, so their workers cannot be placed by county. MSHA says it updates its files on Fridays unless it notes otherwise, so these figures are as downloaded Oct. 31.
