Join Us in Protest Against the Irish Sea Deep Coal Mine – 22nd Feb

Dear Friends,

As the Council decision on the proposed coal mine is now postponed from Feb 22nd – some of us will use that date to visit the headquarters of West Cumbria Mining in Whitehaven and make our views known there.

[The Council meeting is now scheduled for March 19th in Kendal at 10.00 am.]

West Cumbria Mining’s webpage is here – https://www.westcumbriamining.com/ It will tell you of the wonders of deep sea mining next to Sellafield.

Some of us will catch the 12.02 train from Lancaster arriving at Whitehaven at 14.34.  (Calling points include Grange,  Ulverston, Barrow, Millom …)

We can then walk to the HQ of WCM at the Haig Museum and meet there about 3.00 to 3.30 to gather with anyone who has come by car/bike or from other directions.
We will then make our views known in a peaceful manner – have a cuppa and catch the train back.

Hope to see you there – bring banners (and sandwiches for on the train)

More info here

 

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February 22nd Decision -Deferred – Again!

Photo by Adonyi Gu00e1bor on Pexels.com

This proposed deep coal mine under the Irish Sea and 8km from Sellafield must be one of the most protracted planning decisions ever in the history of Cumbria County Council!

It has been deferred again and CCC say it is up to us to keep an eye on their (not very easy to use) website to see when it will happen!!

The provisional date is now tues 19 march.

Watch this space….

Tim Farron MP Says Questions Must Be Asked …..and Answered!!

Below is a letter from Tim Farron MP – He is right

THERE SHOULD BE QUESTIONS ASKED

ABOUT THE CHANCES THAT THE MINE COULD

PHYSICALLY UNDERMINE SELLAFIELD

From: Tim Farron MP
Sent: ‎31/‎01/‎2019 13:37

Subject: Re: West Cumbria Mining WCM Planning application ref: PL\1689\05 (4/17/9007); my post code: LA7 7DT (Case Ref: TF105448)

Dear ….

Thank you very much for your recent email with regard to your objection to the West Cumbria Mining planning application.

I would hope and expect that planning authorities will seriously consider the application on its merits and weaknesses and come to the appropriate resolution.  But on the face of it, there certainly should be questions asked about the chances that the mine could physically undermine the Sellafield nuclear installation and risk spreading radioactive substances.

With best wishes

Yours sincerely

TIM FARRON MP

The Crown and the Irish Sea

Prince Charles has spoken passionately many times about the fragility of the world’s oceans and the need to protect them against dangerous and polluting developments.

We were shocked to find that the Crown has signed an agreement with West Cumbria Mining in order to exploit the rich coal seams lying in faulted  and complex geology beneath the Irish Sea bed.

Whats that you say :  Clutching at straws to Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole?   You bet!

But this is some right Royal straw and it is a very serious matter that should concern Prince Charles and the dignity of the Crown at least as much as the diabolic plan to open the first deep coal mine in the UK in 30 years concerns us.

Below is a letter to the Crown’s representative in Cumbria.

To The Lieutenancy Office:

Suzannah Walker, Assistant Clerk to the Lieutenancy, Cumbria House, 107-117 Botchergate, Carlisle, Cumbria CA1 1RD

I am writing on behalf of Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole and would be very grateful if the following could be sent to the appropriate person for the attention of the Lord-Lieutenant for Cumbria, Mrs Claire Hensman for advice on how to raise concerns about this issue.

Our concern:

The association of the monarch with the exploitation (by means of possible/probable dubious foreign capital from China) of fossil fuels under the Irish Sea bed. The fossil fuel safely in the ground under the Irish Sea which the monarch inherited as sovereign must, by law, custom and practice be passed on to her eventual successor who is presumed to be HRH the Prince of Wales.

Our members and sympathetic associates understand that HM holds the sub-sea mineral rights as far as the limit of UK territorial waters and that HM, personally, made an exploration agreement with the developers, West Cumbria Mining dated 21^st July 2017. The results of the subsequent exploration have not yet been shared (as far as we know) with the elected representatives of HM’s subjects who are resident in Cumbria and who are now being invited by their staff to give planning permission on 22^nd February in Kendal.

The dignity of the Crown in Cumbria is we believe under threat as a result of this arrangement between HM , the developers WCM and their funders EMR Capita.

We would be very grateful if we could be informed of the correct way to raise these concerns.

Yours sincerely,

Marianne Birkby

on behalf of Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole (a Radiation Free Lakeland campaign)

(address supplied)

Link to the Agreement between  HM and WCM can be found here: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07143398/charges/lXWNTRigei_OaJQXhs2MwyKZ7ms

EMR Capital – Chinese Money d http://emrcapital.com/our-team/our-team/

Old King ‘Coal’ and BBC’s Jackanory

The BBC have sent a letter back in response to our complaint about the West Cumbria Mine coverage on 27th Dec Radio 4’s PM.

Dear Ms Birkby

Thanks for contacting us about the PM item on Woodhouse Colliery from December 27.

We raised your concerns with the programme team. They explained that the piece looked mainly at the socio-economic impact of the mining community, as it could be the first new coal mine in the UK for 30 years.

However, it also tackled some well-known environmental concerns about the coal industry. We challenged Caroline Leatherdale, the firm’s Environmental Advisor: “We are talking about burning large amounts of fossil fuels and there will be those that will be against this. We all know what the issues are with reaching CO2 targets.”

She offered the position that the mine wasn’t producing “thermal coal” as its product. Instead, the coking coal’s limited use in steel production would in turn benefit the environment through wind turbine production, public transport infrastructure. Again, she was challenged – “It’s still CO2 emissions, isn’t it?”. Listeners then heard further details of the firm’s attempts to offset its carbon output. As such, we feel the item considered criticisms of the colliery and the environmental factors at play.

We’ve also included other reports about environmental matters on PM, but realise you felt this angle should have been reflected in more depth here. That’s not compulsory on each and every report, but we welcome feedback when it’s felt something has been overlooked.

Your reaction was shared with the Editor and senior News staff at BBC Radio 4.

Kind Regards

BBC Complaints Team
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Sheesh! What a load of old BBC Jackanory.

The mine would emit 175 Million tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime

Every tonne of steel proposed to be made with this coking coal would create almost two tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The mine would also produce mega amounts of ‘thermal’ coal – this was not questioned at all by the BBC, neither was the fact that most of the coal would be for export.

The BBC interviewer swallowed the children’s story that the steel would be for all things nice and green like wind turbines – not nasty Trident submarines or nuclear installations which need mega amounts of steel.

No mention of the high level omission that this mine would be 8km from Sellafield

No apology for the deliberate bias in not interviewing those opposed to the mine – there are plenty of miners local to the area who are against it as this video shows

What pathetic journalism from the BBC!  Or maybe it is targeted deliberately biased journalism to promote this mine as a ‘good thing’  (you may well ask, why?)  Green minded folk who heard this programme have told me they felt reassured ….until the big fat lies were pointed out to them.  The BBC’s percieved gravitas has taken us to war before now.  Whats a coal mine between friends?

How To Write to Cumbria County Council and tell them to Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole

Irish Sea – the scene of the first deep coal mine in the UK in 30 years?   (Photo by GEORGE DESIPRIS on Pexels.com)

The consultation period ends on January 28^th,  Cumbria County Council will still accept letters after this time but the sooner you write the better.

Send your email now to Cumbria County Council at developmentcontrol@cumbria.gov.uk.

Please also ask if you can speak at the meeting on the 22nd February – the more folk who write, speak and make a noise against this plan the better chance we have of stopping it.

Please remember to include the planning application reference number PL\1689\05 (4/17/9007) and your postcode in the subject.

The main points to make are

• This  coal mine proposal flies in the face of Cumbria County Council’s Carbon Reduction Plan and Climate Local programme.
• The mine workings would extend to within 8km of Sellafield, this would increase the risk of earth tremors and worse.
• Collapse of the sea bed as a consequence of mining under the Irish Sea would resuspend radioactive particles from decades of Sellafield reprocessing.

 

Here below is an excellent letter from Sam who is a member of Radiation Free Lakeland.  Feel free to use this as inspiration to write your own letter of objection.  It doesn’t need to be long – just a sentence or a paragraph or two.

To Rachel Brophy, Development Control, Cumbria County Council

Jan 8^th 2019

WOODHOUSE COLLIERY, APPLICATION 4/17/9007

In response to the current consultation I wish to make the following comments regarding the revised Environmental Statement from West Cumbria Mining [WCM]. This letter is additional to my submission of Feb 6^th 2018.

I am writing to raise serious concerns concerning climate change, subsidence, earth tremors and the potential to trigger a major nuclear emergency at Sellafield.

I wish to OBJECT to the application.

I wish to raise four major grounds on which this application must be firmly rejected.

1. The 2008 Climate Change Act

The revised Environmental Statement fails completely to address the UK Government’s commitments to carbon reduction within the 2008 Climate Change Act and the increasingly stringent restrictions regarding the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.

WCM state that at full annual production the mine will extract: 2.43 million tonnes of metallurgical coal; 350,000 tonnes of lower grade ‘middlings’ coal; and 150,000 tonnes of rock overburden (reject).    (annually!)

WCM continue to refer to ‘metallurgical’ coal as if this is in no way related to the coal used in energy generation.   The simple facts of physics are that all coal produces CO2 when burned for whatever purpose.

WCM seem to be completely unaware of the global urgency of reducing carbon emissions. The proposal to open a new coal mine in our current precarious climate change situation is completely counter to Government policy.

2. Subsidence, earth tremors and nuclear accident/emergency.

I have written to The Office for Nuclear Regulation [ONR] regarding the application.   In response to my letter they state –

‘ONR ask to be consulted on developments within the off-site emergency planning area around the Sellafield site, which extends approximately 6.1 – 7.4 km from the site centrepoint (see http://www.onr.org.uk/depz.htm for further details).  We would not expect Cumbria County Council to consult us regarding developments outside this zone, and I can confirm that we have not been consulted.’

This ONR map shows the offsite emergency planning zone around Sellafield.   This shows the area where planning consultation with ONR is required.

The ONR state that Woodhouse Colliery would be approx. 10 km from Sellafield. WCM state the mine would reach within 8km of Sellafield. Which is correct? Surely it is essential to know exactly what the distance may be.

Even more crucially – this is not a mere surface development – the WCM application concerns undersea mining in an area known to be heavily faulted.

The nature of underground earth tremors and minor quakes is that they travel in unpredictable ways through the rock. Earth tremors have no regard for the 7.4 km exclusion zone drawn on the map.

The geology that WCM plans to mine is completely connected to the geology underneath Sellafield. That the mine would be outside the formal ONR planning zone by up to 4km is completely irrelevant given the unpredictable nature of earth movements.

Any earth tremor caused by mining or subsidence would have catastrophic effects in terms of a nuclear emergency bringing massive danger to life over a vast area.

3. Potential collapse of the mine.

The ONR state – ‘The nature of the proposed mine (pillar and room) is one that is not designed to collapse at any point in the future, unlike for example long wall mining.   Even in the highly unlikely event of a collapse, the nature of any ensuing earth tremors would be limited to very low levels.  These levels would not be felt by persons on the Sellafield site and would not disrupt structures, systems and components important to safety on the site. ‘

This is a very worrying response. Firstly ONR states that they believe that the mine is not designed to collapse – then they state that if it did so it would not affect nuclear safety.

‘Pillar and Room’ mines can and do collapse.

“Crandall Canyon Accident Investigation
Summary and Conclusions On August 6, 2007, six miners were killed in a catastrophic coal outburst when roof-supporting pillars failed and violently ejected coal over a half-mile area. Ten days later, two mine employees and an MSHA inspector perished in a coal outburst during rescue efforts.

https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/murray-energys-crandall-canyon-coal-mine-disaster-9-deaths/?fbclid=IwAR3O7nI2ICJCp9qFoMNvPTF3noiDeGly_rGtL6XaRmsJLVt0gXmEiqCc_BA

In the event of a mine collapse at Woodhouse the potential for injury and death would reach well beyond the mine shaft itself. Radioactive accidents at Sellafield could affect much of the UK and neighbouring nations.

There is a major inconsistency here as the ONR believe the mining process to be ‘pillar and room’ while the WCM website states –

‘Run-out and Pocket extraction will be the chosen mining method as this is a proven, highly versatile coal mining method that takes advantage of advancements in mining technology to mitigate risks associated with the Cumbrian Coal fields.’

How can this application possibly be agreed given that WCM and the ONR are clearly not operating on the same basis regarding the basic mining method and associated risks?

It is telling that WCM themselves are acknowledging the very real risks of the Cumbrian coal fields and are seeking to ‘mitigate’ them.

This is a glaring inconsistency and indicative of the wrong footed nature of this entire application.

What Nuclear Emergency Plans are in place by the County Council should tremors damage the containment vessels at Sellafield?

4. Formal assessments of likely subsidence damage have proved to be very wrong

There are big lessons to be learned from the fracking industry at home and abroad.

Groningen in the Netherlands is Europe’s biggest gas field. The Netherlands Government has recently decided to close it down leaving billions of euros of gas in the ground. So far 80,000 homes have been damaged, families are living in sheds and schools are closed.

In the UK the Governments Oil and Gas Authority [OGA] has allowed fracking in Lancashire to proceed with the ‘traffic light’ system of monitoring tremors. Since fracking recommenced in autumn 2018 there have been over 30 Lancashire quakes recorded by the British Geological Society.     Many of these quakes causing shut down of production.   The UK OGA has said – ‘it is rare for damages, even cosmetic ones, to occur at magnitudes of less than 4.’

The truly frightening aspect of this is that ALL of the Groningen quakes measured less than 4. The Netherlands Government had insisted that they were harmless, yet the damage stands at 8 billion euros so far and the closure of the industry.

Groningen had few geological faults or earth tremors before the extraction began.   West Cumbria has a history of both faults and of tremors.

https://www.channel4.com/news/why-the-dutch-are-ditching-gas-extraction

 

CONCLUSION

The nature of subsidence and earth tremors is by nature unpredictable.

What is certain is that this constitutes a very real potential.

The damage caused in the Netherlands by allegedly ‘safe’ levels of tremor would result in radioactive mayhem were such tremors to occur in West Cumbria where we have Europe’s largest collection of deadly nuclear waste.

This potential risk of a nuclear accident/emergency is simply too great a risk.

There is no way that Cumbria County Council can possibly assure the public safety of this proposed mine and the application must be firmly rejected.

 

Sam Moisha

Member of Radiation Free Lakeland

Please SIGN THE PETITION TO KEEP CUMBRIAN COAL IN THE HOLE

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

There does seem to be something of a taboo around this plan.  Maybe it is because folk just cannot believe that there is such a mad bad and dangerous plan to open up a MASSIVE methane rich coal mine just a few miles from Sellafield under the Irish Sea.

Here is the petition – please please please sign and share with family and friends and others!

Only just over 1000 signatures on this petition which outlines the double whammy of climate and nuclear crisis which this plan will push over the precipice of no return.  Please sign and share this petition – get active in any way you can and lets make sure we….

KEEP CUMBRIAN COAL IN THE HOLE

Please do not let Cumbria be the first place in 30 years to open a deep coal mine in the UK. The proposed undersea coal mine under the beautiful coastline at St Bees would be five miles from Sellafield and five miles from the plan for new reactors (Moorside) at Beckermet. Coal mining is known to increase seismic activity.

Why is this important?

What People are Saying:

“We are particularly concerned in regard to the potential impact upon the wider marine and coastal environment of the discharge of water into the sea, which has been pumped from the flooded anhydrite mine.” National Trust

“ The application site is in proximity (Solway Firth 1.5km) to a European designated site (also commonly referred to as Natura 2000 sites), and therefore has the potential to affect its interest features.”Natural England

“any level of subsidence upon the terrestrial or marine heritage assets and designated sites and landscapes could be significant and permanent, therefore having a detrimental impact ..The history of contamination of watercourses in the areas raises concerns for some local residents in relation to the impact of the development on the complex hydrology of the area.” Colourful Coast Partnership

“Our position is to object to the proposed development on the grounds of the adverse impact on groundwater, surface water and biodiversity.”Environment Agency

“It is clear that this is a very large mine, with a very long life span…of 20-50 years and a peak of 2.8 million tonnes a year. Assuming a 40 year life (following construction), and an average of 2 million tonnes a year, that is a total production of 80 million tonnes, which will emit around 175 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. The level of emissions and proposed life-time of the mine is of major concern….We would also query whether or not there has been robust enough analysis of the potential for seismicity (and subsidence) relating to well-known nuclear facilities in the wider area, including Sellafield and proposed new facility at Moorside? What potential is there for seismicity to effect these and other facilities (including the low level waste repository at Drigg) and the possible high level waste radioactive waste facility which has been proposed in West Cumbria for some time.” Friends of the Earth

“The application should be rejected because it is not in the national interest. From reviewing the documents submitted by West Cumbria Mining it is clear that the intention is to export the coal to Europe and Asia…The application to mine is too close to the Sellafield nuclear site and the proposal for another nuclear power station at Moorside. Underground mining can have a significant impact on the surrounding areas, recently a coking coal mine in Russia triggered an earthquake.” Coal Action Network

Just some of the “Star Species” found in this Heritage Coast and Marine Conservation Zone are listed by the RSPB as: Fulmar, Guillemot, Herring Gull, Kittiwake, Razorbill and so many more that would be impacted on by the plan for a new coal mine with possible subsidence of the Irish Sea bed impacting on food sources such as sandeels (and not to mention disturbing and resuspending decades of Sellafield discharges which have settled there).

We ask that Cumbria County Council listen to the substantial concerns of the Coal Authority, Natural England, the National Trust, Coal Action Network, the Environment Agency, Colourful Coast Partnership, Friends of the Earth and others and turn down West Cumbria Mining’s planning application.

How it will be delivered

The petition will be delivered to the planning meeting at Cumbria County Council offices in Kendal this February on 22nd (unless the decision is deferred again)