By Celsias
Posted on Sept. 19, 2011. Listed in:
The West Coast Environment Network has filed an appeal with the Environment Court challenging the recent resource consents awarded to Perth based listed company Bathurst Resources. They want to mine up to two million tonnes of high-grade coal from the Denniston Plateau north of Westport. West Coast Environment Network have said the 200ha of land as being of high conservation value.
And, in line with the Government's recently revised Energy Strategy that has a look of "Drill Baby Drill" about it , and which could fit quite well at a Tea Party Rally in Texas, our very ownstate-owned enterprise Solid Energy began construction of its $25 million pilot lignite-to-briquettes plant near Mataura in Southland last week.
Coal Action Network Aotearoa has roundly criticised Deputy Prime Minister Bill English for supporting the use of "low-quality, dirty brown coal" which would prompt a "massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions". The total exploitation of the lignite fields has yet to be talked about . Our hunch is that the Government will wait til after the election and the company is part privatised and then use the excuse that they can not intervene because the duty of the company is to maximise shareholder profit.
Solid Energy and Bathurst have adjoining coal tenements on the West Coast and have agreements to assist each other with infrastructure, access and transport arrangements - which could total four million tonnes of export coal between them every year. Watch that space, as Solid Energy gets partially privatised.
Bathurst wants to begin production by the end of the year and ramp up to full production of two million tonnes by the end of 2012. Coking coal is a key ingredient in steel making and is in high demand from developing Asian economies. And the very weak ( and likely to be weakened further ) ETS means we will all likely subsidise the extraction of that coal in our taxes.
But the key point if that the last thing we need to be doing is getting more fossil fuels fuels. For a country so dependent on its environment for its living this is economic suicide, even without the impact on the climate .
West Coast Environment Network spokeswoman Karen Mayhew said opencast mining would involve digging up a rare landscape and habitat for threatened species, owned by the people of New Zealand.
"This mine would more than double New Zealand's coal exports. Once the coal is dug up, the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is guaranteed.
"Given the scientific consensus on climate change and its impacts, we consider that this issue should have been considered properly by the resource consent commissioners," Ms Mayhew said in a statement.
Ms Mayhew said the network's appeal would be based on ecological, climate and economic grounds and the group hopes to have Nasa climate scientist Dr James Hansen appear before the court via a video-conference link.
On Solid Energy, Network Aotearoa spokeswoman Frances Mountier said developing lignite was significant for New Zealand because of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from mining and ultimately burning lignite.
"And it's hugely significant to Eastern Southland because of the extensive damage which large-scale lignite mining would cause to air quality, living conditions, and the high-quality rivers and streams on which Southland depends," she said
Ecocide is immoral and stupid Gisborne Herald
Friday, September 09, 2011 • Bob Hughes
COAL producer Solid Energy New Zealand Ltd last month unveiled plans for a new opencast mine in the Upper Waimangaroa, northeast of Westport — part of the Buller coalfield.
Around half the overburden — material above the coal — will cause acidic runoff and need to be dealt with.
Now Apache, an American petroleum drilling company, will be seismic testing here on the East Coast this month.
Four initial wells are planned, the first early next year. No doubt they will be using the environmentally-unfriendly fracking method.
These proposals are the last straw for our clean green myth. I call it Ecocide — wilful damage to Mother Earth’s ecosystems. The very worst crime imaginable.
Our planet provides us with the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and much more. Mining and burning dirty coal affects all these things.
As children we were taught wilful damage was a no-no. Yet as grown-ups we hurt and vandalise our home planet no end. What goes on here?
All are guilty to some degree. Strangely, awareness of this conflict with nature makes no difference to the path we take. Why not?
By committing Ecocide on God’s world (Papatuanuku), Mother Earth, we commit a great wrong — or sin, if you prefer. How immoral and stupid.
Wearing my Tomorrow People — Fossil Fuel-Free Future T shirt, I contemplate our ongoing assault on Mother Earth.
Martin Hanson’s hard-hitting recent column in these pages emphasised the necessity to change our thinking and behaviour, and to cease fooling ourselves.
I agree. He states: “If we are to survive peak oil, we will have to shed many of our most cherished preconceptions. Most of all, we must abandon the notion that material level of consumption is an emblem of success.”
Collectively we are all addicted to this failing fossil-fuel-driven age.
We allow assaults such as coal mining (opencast, and mountain top removal), deep-water drilling and fracking for petroleum products — and now in desperation there is tar sand mining.
These practices release many tonnes of greenhouse emissions along with toxic spoils, contaminating and rendering vast areas of the planet sterile and poisoned for centuries.
We use the excuse that we cannot exist without the produce of these activities to feed our fossil fuel habit.
What rubbish. I again quote Mr Hanson: “The sooner we adapt our thinking and our lifestyles, the better our chances of making it into the post-oil world.”
Our Tomorrow’s People, many not yet born, will mostly be living fossil fuel-free lives. So let us make it easier for them by easing up on our home sphere.
The Declaration of Rights for Mother Earth Document that emerged from the Bolivian People’s Summit in April last year, and was rejected by the UN at Cancun, says it all.
Those living in impoverished nations, already badly affected by degradation and climate extremes created by our actions, can see the truth.
Will we need to suffer the change from abundance to impoverishment before we too are enlightened?
I repeat, millions throughout the world have already taken the first steps to more sustainable lives. The Tairawhiti Environment Centre can help if you are interested.
It is election year. With MMP we have two votes. Vote for the environment if you disagree with the present Government’s unsustainable mining and drilling policies.
Written in September 2011