Luminant to Close Tatum Plant After Christmas, Lay Off 160+ East Texans

This is tough thing for anyone to go through, but Dallas-based Luminant has confirmed that they will be closing their Martin Lake Mining Complex in Tatum the day after Christmas this year. A closing that has been part of their plans for years.

So this is not coming as a surprise to these folks, those affected by the closing have known since early this year that their jobs would be coming to an end.

"The estimated 160-170 employees impacted were informed earlier this year," Luminant spokesman Kyle Weeks said in a statement. "They are being provided severance benefits including lump sum cash payments based on service years, additional payments to help offset COBRA expenses, as well as outplacement services. Employees are also being made aware of other open positions within the company."

Regardless of how much Luminant has worked to ease the transition for the East Texans, losing your job or even changing jobs is rarely a smooth transition.

But Luminant has plans for an old East Texas site. According to the Longview News Journal, in October of last year Luminant announced "plans to build a new solar farm on the site of the retired Oak Hill mine and on the west side of Martin Lake Power Plant. The plans for the solar farm were part of a wider push by Luminant for more renewable energy, the company said at the time."

At the time that new facility was expected to go online in 2022. We'll see how that plays out in the mean time our thoughts are with these folks who are now on the hunt for new jobs.