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 Post subject: Centralia, Pa.
PostPosted: Tue May 04, 2010 7:54 am 
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 7:16 pm
Posts: 478
Location: Anthracite Region of PA
Judge won’t act on Centralia case
Jurist tells residents he has no jurisdiction to hear arguments against relocation.
MICHAEL RUBINKAM Associated Press Writer




HARRISBURG — A state appeals judge said Monday that while he sympathizes with residents of a central Pennsylvania town decimated by a mine fire, he has no jurisdiction to hear arguments about why they should be allowed to stay in their homes — at least not yet.

Most homes in Centralia were demolished in the 1980s as an underground fire that began in 1962 threatened residents with poisoning gases and dangerous sinkholes.

A $42 million government relocation program was largely completed by 1993, when officials invoked eminent domain to get dozens of holdouts to leave.

Most did, eventually, but a handful of residents have mounted a last-ditch legal effort to stave off eviction.

Residents assert the state government is part of a conspiracy to swipe the mineral rights to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of anthracite coal — rights now owned by the borough itself. They say the fire has either burned itself out or has moved away from the town, eliminating the state’s rationale for kicking them out.

Their attorney, Bart Holmes, told Senior Commonwealth Court Judge Keith Quigley on Monday that no court has ever explored these issues.

Holmes asked Quigley to stop the state from evicting his clients.

“What I’ve heard you say, that impresses me,â€

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