All those hunky, dirty-faced coal miners staring from the region's billboards and touting coal's role in powering America have a new anti-coal ad campaign to look at.

The Pennsylvania Alliance for a Coal-Free Generation yesterday unveiled a billboard, bus stop and Internet ad campaign that confronts the coal industry ad claims of clean coal and urges a transition to renewable energy sources and more efficient technologies.

"We need to start challenging the coal billboards where the industry falsely advertises 'clean coal' and begin to draw attention to the truth," said Raina Rippel, executive director of the Washington, Pa.-based Center for Coalfield Justice, during a news conference at Forbes Avenue and Craig Street, where "A Coal-Free Future" ad adorns a Port Authority Transit bus kiosk.

The $15,000 ad campaign, developed by the alliance over the last year, also has billboards along Bigelow Boulevard and Banksville Road.

This year the industry-backed American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity is spending more than $40 million on advertising touting the power production and patriotism of coal use.

Far from the industry's ad image, coal mining destroys communities through subsidence and pollutes the environment, said Randy Francisco, Sierra Club Pennsylvania campaign organizer.

"The Pittsburgh region is so tied to a coal-fired economy that it may lose out to other areas as the nation transitions to more sustainable energy sources," Mr. Francisco said. "I think we're poised for a transition to wind and solar and green buildings and can take the lead, though it will take a while."

In addition to the Sierra Club and Center for Coalfield Justice, other groups in the alliance include the Citizens Coal Council, Clean Water Action, the Environmental Integrity Project and the Mountain Watershed Association.

More information on the coal-free campaign is available on the alliance's Web site at www.CoalFreeGeneration.com.