Climate Noise Has Obscured Nuclear Dump Cronyism and Nuclear Impacts of Coal Mine – Why Bother With Traffic Light System for Induced Earthquakes?

The following letter has just been sent to the Coal Mine Planning Inspector Mr Stephen Normington following a letter from the Rt Hon Greg Hands, Minister of State for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (this Govnt department appointed the coal mine boss as “invaluable” nuclear dump advisor).

Dear Planning Inquiry Inspector Mr Stephen Normington,

Happy New Year to you and yours.

We, Radiation Free Lakeland (who run the Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole campaign) are aware that you will shortly be making a recommendation to the Secretary of State on West Cumbria Mining’s coal mine plan.

We would like to draw your attention to a letter (attached) we have received from the Rt Hon Greg Hands, Minister of State for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change.  The reply is to our letter requesting that, should the coal mine be approved by government, then a seismic Traffic Light System at least as stringent as that for the oil and gas industry should be part of the conditions imposed.   The empirical evidence (presented by Radiation Free Lakeland at the Planning Inquiry) is unequivocal in its findings that coal mining produces earthquakes of far greater magnitude and frequency than that of fracking.  Despite this Greg Hands MP states that there will be no Traffic Light System for the coal mine.

In tandem with the absence of a seismic Traffic Light System is the outrageous allowance of 6mm/s Peak Particle Velocity as agreed by the Inquiry’s Rule 6 Parties and Developer for ground movements as a result of the deep mining proposed.   As you will be aware the PPV at which “receptors”  will make complaints is 1mm/s.

An observer of the bulk of the Planning Inquiry would have had no idea of the uniquely dangerous sense of place regarding the planned coal mine.  If this same coal mine was anywhere in the world the climate impacts would be the same.  But this coal mine is not anywhere in the world.  It is five miles from Sellafield, the worlds riskiest nuclear waste site,  under the arguably most radioactively contaminated sea in the world and directly beneath the radioactively contaminated Cumbrian Mud Patch.

You will see In his reply to us the Minister answers a question we did not ask – namely the use of the coal mine as a nuclear dump – no one in their right mind would think of using a coal mine as a nuclear dump, our concerns lay with the undeniable connections/cronyism between the coal mine and the proposed Geological Disposal Facility.

The Government’s refusal to consider a seismic Traffic Light System for the earthquake inducing coal mine is a case in point. 

Mark Kirkbride the CEO of West Cumbria Mining was appointed in 2019 as an “invaluable” adviser to the Government (Committee on Radioactive Waste Management) on the digging of big holes for a Geological Disposal Facility for Heat Generating Nuclear Wastes and for shallower Near Surface Disposal of Low and Intermediate Level Nuclear Wastes.   

We are painfully aware, as no doubt is government nuclear dump advisor Mark Kirkbride, that a seismic Traffic Light System for an earthquake inducing deep undersea coal mine would also impact negatively on the facilitation of an even deeper hole for a GDF. The Irish Sea area adjacent to the coal mine is in the frame for a GDF.

We urge you to take all these related issues into consideration and emphatically advise refusal for the deep coal mine which is far more than the sum of its (more widely reported) climate/jobs parts.   Should this coal mine go ahead the people and environment of Cumbria and the planet WILL be exposed to deep radiological, immediate and irreversible impacts that will make the more widely reported and not to be sneezed at climate impacts pale into insignificance.

The whole thing feels like a massive stitch up in which the climate issues have been used as a smoke screen to hide the nuclear impacts of this coal mine.  If Leonardo DiCaprio (of “Don’t Look Up” fame)  thinks climate campaigners have it bad he should walk a mile in the shoes of nuclear safety campaigners!

Please ensure the safety of Cumbria and the planet by emphatically advising refusal for this out of control deep coal mine five miles from Sellafield.

Thank You.

Yours sincerely,

Marianne Birkby
Radiation Free Lakeland who run the Keep Cumbrian Coal in the Hole campaign