MAIN ENVIRONMENTAL&SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN CHINA’S COALMINE CONSTRUCTION AND THE

COUNTERMEASURES

Haiqing Geng

Appraisal Center for Environment & Engineering, SEPA, Beijing, China

Content

New characteristics of coal exploitation The main environmental and social impacts Problems in management field Countermeasures

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China’s recoverable reserve of coal is 114.5 billion tons,—20.75% of the gross in the world, but crude oil and natural gas are only 1.50% and 1.12% of the world respectively.

China’s coal reserve

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Coal Crude Oi l Natural Gas Others

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Production and Consumption

2005Production:2.20 billion tons76.4% of the totalconsumption:2.17 billion tons68.9% of the total

1 New characteristics of the coal

exploitation sector in recent years

1 The amount of proposed projects increases fast

1998-2002： no large coalmine constructed due to the Southeast Asian financial crisis2003： new coalmine construction upsurge began, 144 environmental impact reports submitted to ACEE ， the investment exceeded the past 50 years Totally 248 billion RMB2007: the investment begin to fade away

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2 The distribution is regular129 proposed projects distributed in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Guizhou, Ningxia, Anhui, Shandong and Henan. the capacity reached 0.66 billion tons, 93.4% of the total.

3 integrated with correlative industries

Planned economy: coalmine——Ministry of Coal Industry electric power——Ministry of Power Industry chemical industry——Ministry of Chemical IndustryMarket economy: Department and regional monopoly was broken Coal exploitation, electric power and coal chemical industries are integrated both on the enterprises and regional level Many traditional coal mining groups expand toward electric power and coal chemical field

2 The main environmental and social impacts

• Subsiding area :103 km2 /a ， totally 5,150 km2

• Excavating area by 14 opencast mines: 700km2 • Land occupation by coal slack : 9.87 hm2 per

coalmine, totally 14 km2

• Impact: water and soil loss, desertification ,the loss of biodiversity , the loss of farmland

1 The ecological impact

2 Water resource pressure

Distribution of coal resource and water resource is reversed.98 coal mines are with in 100 km from the main rivers.69 coal mines concentrated in Yellow Drainage basin.

Water consumptionElectric power:1000kw·h ↔3.63 tons Coal chemical industry: 1 ton product ↔ 10 tons.

3 Migrating problem

index Panyi Pansan Pansi East Dingji Gubei

Recoverable reserve (Mt) 1437 1181 345 1280 674

Farmland influenced （ ha）

4113 3738 1524 7401 1676

Farmland loss （ ha） 2877 2406 833 5736 1518

Villages influenced 60 66 25 94 50

Villages migrated 51 56 25 77 46

Population migrated 24031 20156 11412 42000 23581

some coal mines’ subsiding impact in Huainan Mining Group

Once the depth of subsidence exceeds that of groundwater, the subsiding land will be turned into water area forever and the ecological framework will be changed.

4 The waste influence

Actuality: Solid waste: more than 1,500 coal slack hills (only state-owned coalmines), accumulating quantity reached 3.85 billion tons. The reusing level is only 42%. Waste water: 4.5 billion tons discharged per year. The reusing proportion is only 48.95%. Coal-bed gas: 14 billion cubic meters was discharged every year, only 24.4% is used from the quantity pumped out.

3 Problems in management field

1 The SEA lags behind the practical need

Environmental Impact Assessment Law was issued in 2003, including plans and projects. But the EIA towards coal district plan haven’t developed universally.

Obstacles: negligence of the government lack of the money conflict of the ministerial benefit

2 The management policy isn’t clear

Environment policies seldom consider the regional differences

Policy of eco-environmental protection and the pollution prevention: reusing level of waste water for large coalmines should be at least 65%, the reusing proportion of coal slack should be at least 55%, and the reclamation rate of the influenced land should reach 75% till 2010. It is not reasonable to set the same criteria.

3 Migrating problem hasn’t aroused enough attention

Coal exploitation

Electric power industry

Coal chemical industry

Infrastructure construction

Migration and ecological framework adjustment in Huainan mining district

4 The ecological compensation mechanism is absent

The environmental externality hasn’t been considered sufficiently. There is no uniform ecological compensation mechanism in the coal industry.

Four key problems: compensation criteria compensation entity compensation way supervision mode

4 Countermeasures

1 Accelerating the implementation of SEA

SEA Should focus on systematic ecological renovation reuse of the waste migration protection of sensitive objectives

The EIA towards projects has been implemented universally, but the SEA upon plans of coal district has just been put into practice no more than 5 years.

2 Compartmentalizing the environmental management units

The typical zones for environment management

1 、 Loess plateau hilly and gully zone2 、 Plan mine-grain complex zone3 、 Yunnan-Guizhou mountainous zone4 、 North-west desert grassland zone

5 、 East Mongolian meadow grassland zone

Corresponding relationship between the arranged constructing coalmines and the five typical zones

3 Arranging the migration comprehensively

The migration offered an opportunity of promoting the urbanization level and adjusting the framework of economy and society.

The nestle town in Huainan coal district

4.4 Installing the ecological compensation mechanism

Three types of compensation Enterprise to local Coal inflowing region to the out flowing regionState to the historic remaining problem

As the most important resource exploitation sector, coal industry should install the compensation mechanism in priority.