Vanessa Atkinson :: Greenpeace
Greenpeace opposes the Cypress Mine (RC03175), proposed by Solid Energy, on the basis of the impact on climate change and on the environmental impacts of mining at the site on biodiversity and water quality.
Greenpeace urges the West Coast Regional Council and the Buller District Council (the Councils) to reject the application for resource consents for this project.
We do not wish to be heard in support of this submission but request Buller Conservation Group to be heard on our behalf and to present our submission at the hearing.
Climate Change
The Cypress Mine will generate 5 million tonnes of coal over 10 years, which when burnt, will release approximately 13 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and climate change.
Burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, as well as other activities such as land clearance and farming, pumps billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These gases create a 'greenhouse effect', thickening the natural canopy of gases in the atmosphere, trapping heat, which causes the planet to warm up (see Graph 1).
The scientific majority is clear: climate change is real and it’s happening now. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a group of world-renowned climate scientists set up by the United Nations in 1988 that monitor and predict changes in the climate and impacts. 17 national science academies around the world have identified the IPCC as the most reliable source of information on climate change. Each successive IPCC assessment report has been more definite in its assertions that global warming and other associated changes during the last 35-50 years have been the result of human activities. Of the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide is the major contributor to climate change.
Over one million plants and animals, a quarter of all life on land, could become extinct in just decades due to human-made climate change, according to a recent article in the British scientific Journal Nature. Most of these would be extinct by 2050.
To protect our environment against climate change, we have to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally. 75% of recoverable fossil fuel reserves must remain in the ground - never to be used as fuels - if we want to keep global temperature increases under one degree Celsius and avoid dangerous levels of climate change. This translates to 95% of total estimated fossil fuel resources that cannot be used as fuel. (See the attached summary report Fossil Fuels and Climate Protection: The Carbon Logic, and please consider it part of our submission. The full technical report is available online at: http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/campaigns/climate/clogic.pdf
Coal releases 72 % more carbon per unit of energy than natural gas and carbon dioxide is the most important gas contributing to climate change. The burning of coal therefore needs to be rapidly phased out.
Yet Solid Energy’s report assessing the mines impacts fails to even mention this major environmental impact.
"Clean Coal" technology no solution
In response to environmental concerns regarding coal, there have been efforts by the industry to make environmental improvements, to try to make coal "clean". Since 1984, almost $2 billion has allocated in federal subsidies to the clean coal research in the USA, with little to show for the environment or local communities.
For example, the operators of the Healy Clean Coal project in the USA, want to retrofit the current clean coal plant with traditional technologies. A nearby, retrofitted coal plant is more reliable and pollutes less than the Healy clean coal facility.
Clearly, end-of pipe "clean coal" technology is not a solution to the environmental problems of coal. Not only has it so far proved largely ineffective, but also the impacts of coal mining on the environment, such as those that would be created by the proposed Cypress Mine, are not solved by this technological fix. Coal is still the most carbon dioxide intensive fossil fuel and contributes significantly to climate change.
Local environmental impacts of Cypress Mine
Biodiversity
The proposed Cypress Mine would severely impact local biodiversity. The area contains excellent examples of coal plateau landscapes and biological communities, some of the best remaining nationally. These include tussock land, shrub land and heath land communities, as well as low forests of mountain beech, pink pine, yellow silver pine and southern rata and pygmy pine.
However almost none of the Buller coal plateau coal measure vegetation is protected, and very little of this distinctive and important ecology is protected in the region.
The mining activity proposed would destroy some of the best areas and put others at risk from the mining operation including the open cast pit, road works, rock dump areas and water pollution.
Cypress mine would also jeopardise the three threatened bird species that live in the region – western weka, kaka and great spotted kiwi or roa. There are at least five or six known pairs of the latter known from the proposed mining site. The mining operation would destroy the habitat of these species, further threatening their long term viability. Solid Energy’s offer to move the roa would not address this fundamental problem.
95% of roa in lowland areas have disappeared in the last 80 years. Their survival rate is slightly better at 66% in the higher areas such as the Cypress mine region. It is therefore very important to preserve these higher ecosystems to ensure long term roa existence.
The operation would put further pressure on the endangered land snail Powelliphanta patrickensis, due to loss of habitat and population.
Revegetation is very difficult in the area due to the high rainfall, little sunlight hours and Solid Energy so far has not proved to be successful at this, such as at Stockton. Therefore damage to the habitats of these threatened species must be prevented.
Further, the absence of weed species in the Happy Valley / Upper Waimangaroa area makes this region particularly special. The process of mining and preparation for mining activities will disturb the soil and allow weed species to colonise. Gorse, exotic rush and exotic lotus have become widespread at others Solid Energy mine sites, such as Stockton and Mt Frederick. Solid Energy claims that they will keep gorse "under control" at Cypress has to be questioned given their history at other sites.
Water quality
There is a high risk of acid mine drainage during the dumping of the 4 million tonnes of overburden from Cypress mine, to be dumped on-site and in the Stockton Mine area nearby. The composition of rocks to be mined is unknown, so the potential for them to create acid mine drainage is unknown until mining commences.
Also the high rainfall on the plateau (up to five metres per year) raises questions about the ability of Solid Energy’s water treatment plant to deal with flooding and high rainfalls.
Solid Energy’s poor history of environmental management
Solid Energy’s history of environmental management does not allay environmental concerns for Cypress. Acid mine drainage, coal fines and other sediments from the Stockton mine have virtually destroyed the ecology of the Mangatini Stream and severely degraded the lower Ngakawau River. Seepage from a diversion channel from Mt Frederick mine and from the nearby water treatment lake contains aluminium, cadmium, copper, iron, lead, nickel, iron and zinc.
Up to 125km of waterways from the north and central West Coast are already contaminated because of acid mine drainage from historic and current coal mines. Although not all West Coast mines belong to Solid Energy, they do own the majority of current and historical mines in the area.
A former Solid Energy geologist Paul Caffyn stated last year that explosions at the company’s Strongman Mine had caused landslips down Doherty and Waterfall Creeks that had together dumped more than 60,000 cubic metres of mining debris into Ten Mile Creek. In addition, an uncontrolled coal-seam fire was so strong the glare was seen well offshore by fishing boats, who used it as a nighttime navigation aid.
Mr Caffyn stated that the Solid Energy had caused the worst environmental damage in the 160-year history of the Strongman mine.
Solid Energy’s poor track record on environmental management raises questions over the ability of Solid Energy to minimise environmental damage at Cypress.
Conclusions
Due to the proposed mine’s contribution to climate change and the impact on biodiversity and water quality, Greenpeace urges the Buller District and West Coast Regional Councils not to issue resource consents for Solid Energy’s Cypress Mine.
