Citizens Allied to Stop Raven Coal Mine Proposal

News Release, CoalWatch Comox Valley, February 15, 2010

The risk to salmon habitat, water quality and hundreds of shellfish jobs were among the chief concerns expressed in Courtenay Thursday night at a packed public meeting about the controversial plan for a new coal mine in Comox Valley.

“Public concern is growing rapidly as more and more people realize there really could be a large underground coal mine in the heart of the Baynes Sound watershed,” said Campbell Connor of CoalWatch Comox Valley, a citizen’s group that organized the meeting.

More than 200 people attended the meeting at the Florence Filberg Centre, where energy researcher Arthur Caldicott provided details about the proposal and the environmental and health risks associated with coal mining.

He stressed that it is essential to have complete and comprehensive aquifer mapping in order to assess the long-term impact of a coal mine on the watershed.

Another guest speaker, Jack Minard of the Tsolum River Restoration Society, said the experience of the Mount Washington copper mine provides an important lesson about what can go wrong with mining.

That mine, which started in 1964 and operated for just four years, contaminated the river and devastated salmon stocks. Taxpayers have paid far more for the ongoing clean-up than the value of any copper that was extracted.

Minard said the experience highlights the need for the public to speak out and remain vigilant whenever a mine is proposed. “If had not been for the dogged determination of ordinary citizens it is doubtful anything would have been done,” he said.

People in the audience expressed many additional concerns, including coal dust, the impact on air quality, and the contribution coal mining and processing makes to climate change.

The proposed mine would be situated on Cowie Creek in Fanny Bay. The proposal is a partnership between Compliance Energy and two trading companies from Japan and Korea.

If approved, the mine would remove 2.2 million tonnes of coal per year for 20 years. Two thirds of the coal would be transported to either Campbell River, Port Alberni, or Duke Point for shipment to China; the rest would remain as mine wastes.

CoalWatch Comox Valley is a citizen’s group that was formed in November, when more than 200 people attended a meeting at the Fanny Bay hall to ask questions and raise concerns about the proposed mine.

For details, visit www.coalwatch.ca. Follow CoalWatch activities and notices on twitter.com/coalwatchcv.

Islands Trust writes to Premier Campbell

The Denman Island Local Trust Committee, chaired by Peter Luckham, wrote on December 22, 2009 to Premier Campbell and Ministry of Environment Minister Barry Penner with respect to the inappropriateness of permitting a new coal mine in BC when local governments are being charged with reducing carbon emissions. And the Islands Trust itself asked the Raven people to be included in the list of interested stakeholders for consultation purposes.

December 21, 2009

The Honourable Gordon Campbell

Premier of British Columbia

PO Box 9041 Stn Prov Govt

Victoria, BC V8W 9E1

Dear Premier Campbell:

I am writing this letter as Chair of the Denman Island Local Trust Committee in the hopes that your government, in concert with the Ministry of the Environment, will evaluate the global impact of allowing Compliance Coal Corporation to extract 44 million tonnes of coal over twenty years, as unacceptable.

This proposed mine is located in the Comox Valley Regional District, a few miles west of Baynes Sound, which separates Denman Island from Vancouver Island.
Denman Island is the northern most island within the jurisdiction of the Islands Trust. The mandate of the Trust, to preserve and protect the environment for the people of British Columbia would be seriously compromised if such a mine was approved. The document, Raven Underground Project – Project Description, prepared for Compliance Coal Corporation (August 2009) identifies a number of potential impacts including air quality, noise/vibration, water related impacts, selenium mobilization and toxicity, acid rock drainage, human health and terrestrial impacts.

It is inconceivable that our Provincial Government, which just recently charged local governments to incorporate GHG reduction targets and the means to those reductions within their respective Official Community Plans, would, at the same time, consider allowing another coal deposit to be removed, processed and shipped across the Pacific to be used in the production of steel.

At present the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 385 ppm (parts per million). Before industrialization it was about 280 ppm. Analyses of air contained in ice from the Antarctic ice cap show that there is far more CO2 in the air today than at any time in the last 650,000 years.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent assessment report concludes that the average temperature will continue to rise, but that the extent and the duration of this rise, and the severity of its consequences, depend on how quickly and how effectively emissions of greenhouse gases can be restricted and, over time, reduced.

Burning of fossil fuels, primarily coal, oil and gas, increases the amount of CO2 and other gases and particles in the air. These gases and particles affect the Earth’s energy balance, changing both the amount of sunlight absorbed by the planet and the emission of heat (long wave or thermal radiation) to space. The net effect is a global warming that has become substantial during the past three decades.the past three decades.

Global warming from continued burning of more and more fossil fuels poses clear dangers for the planet and for the planet’s present and future inhabitants. Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the air.

In 2007, global steel production stood at 1.34 billion tonnes; producing one tonne of steel can release up to one tonne of carbon dioxide.

Industrialized nations are under pressure to cut back even more on emissions of carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases, while major developing countries such as China and India are being pressed to rein in their emissions growth.

Environmentalists and poorer nations say richer countries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent or more by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, to avoid serious climate damage.

As I write this letter, the Copenhagen Climate talks have come to an end. Industrialized nations are being asked to take leadership roles in reducing carbon emissions. The world looks to Canada for signs of this leadership.

The benefit of creating a few jobs pales when compared to the environmental costs. The green economy is poised to create far more sustainable jobs in the near future. Please let us not continue to do “business as usual”.

Sincerely,

Peter Luckham,

Chair, Denman Island Local Trust Committee

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A New Coal Mine for the Comox Valley?

company unable to answer questions about how much water it would take to wash metallurgical coal, or where the company plans to get the water.

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The Cold Comfort of Coal - by Ray Grigg

The Raven Underground Coal Project, a joint venture between Compliance Coal Corporation and its Japanese and Korean partners, could extract up to 100 million tonnes of metallurgical coal in the Tsable River watershed near Fanny Bay. This is cold comfort for the environment.

Pride and confidence exude from the developers who could potentially remove from this one mine double the historic quantity of coal removed from Vancouver Island during the heyday of the old coal barons. The proportion is in keeping with the scale of industrialization that has expanded the global economy 15-fold in the last 50 years, and is causing an environmental impact of corresponding proportions. Accordingly, nothing is as simple and innocent as it used to be. And the environmental damage of mining coal cannot be disguised with comfortable assurances, careful marketing and benign-sounding names.

"Compliance" seems like an agreeable company ‹ unless we ask what it is in compliance with. And this "metallurgical" coal is "rare" ‹ qualities that are not necessarily advantageous to the Comox Valley region. The coal is also "clean" ‹ an attribute hiding the fact that this fossil fuel is the dirtiest source of energy on the planet. And placing the coal extraction "underground" implies that the project minimizes pollution ‹ until we realize that the coal will be brought to the surface, washed, stored, transported through communities, then shipped to the other side of the planet to be burned. The 3,100 hectare area will only create a surface "disturbance" on 200 hectares ‹ suggesting that the mountain-levelling practices in West Virginia will not occur here so complaints are unjustified. And, since everyone washes, the "coal washing" seems benign ‹ until we ask about the amount of water used, its source, and how, where and in what condition will it be returned to the Tsable watershed. For perspective on this mining project, we should remember the continuing pollution from nearby Quinsam Coal and the litany of environmental headaches it has created in its watershed.

As the proponents for the Raven project proudly attest, "We're extremely lucky in the fact that [with] this location... we're sitting on the doorstep of all the infrastructure that we need." This comment contains an implicit compliment to the community ‹ with the suggestion that the two are so compatible that denying coal mining would be tantamount to resisting destiny. But, besides roads, railways, shipping ports and a water source, this "infrastructure" also means large coal trucks could be using public highways and dusting families, children and homes with coal dust.

The proponents are also proud to note that the mine would be located six kilometres west of Fanny Bay, over a ridge and in a valley that's away from any sight or sound pollution for nearby residents. But the lesson we are sadly learning on Spaceship Earth is that it has no "away". Every place is "here". Each part is connected by links sometimes too indirect for us to notice. We can't mine coal in one location and take it "away" to be burned. Chinese smog is found in Tofino's air samples. Carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere in Tokyo or Seoul affects the weather in Iqaluit and Mogadishu.

And how much carbon dioxide would be added from the potentially 100 million tonnes available to be mined in the Raven project? Assume that high quality coal is composed of 90% carbon, and this carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide when the coal is burned. The molecular weight of carbon is 12 and oxygen is 16, so CO2 weighs 12 + (2 x 16) = 44 mass units. Now multiply 90% of 100 tonnes of coal by 44/12, the ratio of the molecular weights of carbon dioxide to carbon. The result is 330 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 3.3 times the weight of the coal.

In the new global world of environmental realities, we can no longer afford to allow a new coal mine without considering the ethical implications of adding potentially 330 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to an atmosphere already overloaded with this greenhouse gas. And consider the carbon costs of extracting and shipping the coal long-distances. How will the coal be burned on site? Is it the best fuel for the purpose? Will the carbon be captured and safely sequestered? (Permanent sequestration of carbon dioxide is still a technological oxymoron.) Should anyone be selling coal to a buyer whose pollution standards are less than adequate or if the purchasing country is not cooperating with the international community on constraining greenhouse gas emissions? Should British Columbians be accessories to the environmental "crime" of global warming by mining and selling coal, the dirtiest of all fossil fuels? In a wholly interconnected global ecology without an "away", does access to a polluting resource such as coal obligate us to mine it and thereby be excused from an ethical responsibility for that coal?

The old simplicities no longer apply in the new world of environmental awareness. In their stead are layered complexities of issues that supersede traditional economic considerations. The mere financial viability of a coal mining project is no longer justification for it to proceed. Given the deepening crisis of global warming and all its ominous effects on climate, oceans, species and food production, should anyone even be mining coal?

As Compliance Coal Corporation considers a mine near Fanny Bay, its most searching consideration should not be financial viability but ethical responsibility.

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See Coal Mine Proposal Information at Watershed Sentinel Hotspots