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Whilst no dates have yet been set for the resource consent hearings, we have another opportunity to oppose the mine expansion, via submissions to the Selwyn District Plan:

https://yoursay.selwyn.govt.nz/selwyndistrictplanreview

NB: You don’t have to live in the Selwyn District to make a submission, and a local resident and environmental activist, Siana Fitzjohn, has put together a very helpful “how-to” guide:

Selwyn District Plan Submission Guide CANA

Please note that the closing date for submissions is this Friday, 11 December, at 5pm.

Siana Fitzjohn with her KuneKune pig Splodge (Otago Daily Times)

The post A guide to making submissions against the Coalgate mine, via the Selwyn District Plan appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Bathurst, based in Wellington, but largely Singaporean-owned,  is the main coal miner supplying New Zealand’s dairy industry, Aotearoa’s second-largest coal user. The industry, dominated by Fonterra, burns coal to dry milk powder for export.  Last year the Overseas Investment Office granted Bathurst permission to buy more land in Canterbury for mining.

Extinction Rebellion Ōtautahi Christchurch protest at ECan offices in early May. Photo: ER Chch.

Bathurst’s current mine at Coalgate (Glentunnel, mid-Canterbury) produces 142,000 tonnes of coal a year, which once consumed adds 406,000 tonnes of CO2 a year into the atmosphere.  The extension, two kilometres away, would extend the life of the mine to 2035 and produce another 30,000 tonnes of coal a year – adding another 87,000 tonnes of CO2 a year to the atmosphere. 

Yet Fonterra has promised it is getting out of coal and working to transition to a new energy future – and the government has bought into this.  

In the leadup to Level 4 lockdown, Bathurst and Fonterra spent two days successfully lobbying the government to make thermal coal for dairy factories an essential use.  

Coal Action Network Aotearoa has had a long history of opposing Bathurst’s coal mining activities. In this blog we set out what is going on in Canterbury, along with other historical background to the company, its precarious finances, and its political relationships.  

Bathurst’s ongoing pollution of local rivers threatens endangered fish 

Right alongside the Coalgate mine is Bush Gully creek, habitat to the critically endangered Canterbury mudfish, which is close to extinction.  The creek runs through the land.

A large part of Bathurst’s application to Environment Canterbury (ECan) for this 18ha expansion of its current coal mine includes retrospective applications to make up for not meeting its consents for its current mining operations,as detailed in their resource consent applications, which are available via the ECan website. 

Bathurst is applying for retrospective consent on a range of issues, including its original consent for water use, which it has consistently exceeded, and for damage to the Tara Wetlands which it has damaged extensively, and is applying to continue doing so.  It has also breached consent on traffic movement, running more trucks up and down the road than it had consented – and wants to extend those movements. 

Aside from these breaches, let’s look at Bathurst’s record so far at its current Coalgate mine: 

• In 2017 Bathurst was ordered to pay a $10,500 fine from 14 infringement notices for failing to protect waterways from sediment runoff from the mine. ECan’s Waihora zone manager Michaela Rees, told Stuff the company’s failure to fully establish sediment controls such as fencing, staged ponds and planting, was a “very serious issue”.  “This left the waterways or streams vulnerable as there was inadequate protection in place to manage the risk of sediment run-off during a large rainfall event, of which there have been several this year.”
• But Bathurst clearly hadn’t cleaned up – as, in early 2018 it was ordered to pay a further $9750 for 13 more infringements, also relating to sediment runoff from the mine, causing runoff to flow into local rivers.  All 27 infringements between June and November 2017, left large areas of soil exposed to heavy rainfall that subsequently washed it into the rivers, including Bush Gully creek. The runoff ultimately ends up in the critically polluted Lake Waihora.
• One would think Bathurst would have learned its lesson.  But in January 2020 Bathurst was again fined – this time for $18,000 – for breaching its consent and discharging sediment into the Bush Gully Stream, home to the endangered Canterbury Mudfish.  While the discharge was not deliberate Judge B Dwyer said Bathurst’s offending involved a “systemic failure to comply” with the terms of its consent, and it took place in a “vulnerable environment which is a highly important habitat of a nationally threatened species”.

These breaches bring not only Bathurst’s environmental record into question, but also Environment Canterbury’s ability to properly monitor the company to stop it from polluting.  After the first breach,  Rees said “If the company fails to comply again in any way, we won’t hesitate to escalate our enforcement response if necessary – our waterways must be protected.”

And yet Bathurst went on to breach the consent on numerous occasions. Enforcement has not been escalated.  This is not only a reflection on Bathurst, it is also a reflection on ECan’s ability to keep the miner under control.

ECan cannot take climate change into consideration 

The elephant in the room with this application is the fact that under the current Resource Management Act (RMA), in weighing up whether to grant Bathurst consent for the new mine,  ECan is prevented from taking the mine’s impact on the climate into account. 

This is a fundamental problem with the RMA that has been addressed in the Parliamentary Select Committee’s report back of the RMA Amendment Bill, which is currently waiting for its second and third readings.

However, even those amendments will take some time to come into force, as the proposed legislation stipulates that a National Policy Statement on Climate has to be put into place first.  

So ECan will have to ignore the fact that the mine will dig up coal that will be burned in dairy factories and spew forth a further 87,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. 

How did Bathurst get here: a history

In 2016, after Bathurst had finally won consent to open the Escarpment Mine on the Denniston Plateau, the price of coal was so low that it wasn’t profitable to export the coal.  Then Bathurst’s sole customer at that time, Holcim Cement, closed down. 

Bathurst mothballed the mine, and turned its sights on domestic coal production to keep itself afloat.  Armed with a contract to supply Fonterra, it ramped up its production in Southland and Canterbury, at  Takitimu mine in Nightcaps and Coalgate mine near Glentunnel where it has twice extended its mining. 

This amped-up production for dirty dairy allowed Bathurst to keep itself afloat financially. It then teamed up with Talley’s to form a new company, BT Mining, which bought up Solid Energy’s coal assets on the West Coast and some in the North Island, a deal finalised in 2017. 

Protest outside a Fonterra distribution plant in Christchurch

However, the Escarpment mine remains mothballed, as Bathurst doesn’t have the consent from DOC it needs to expand a road to get the coal off the plateau. It is trying to get this across the line as part of the post COVID-19 “shovel ready” projects. 

Things got worse for Bathurst in April 2020 when it lost its appeal against paying L&M Mining the $60 million it owed the company for the Denniston/Escarpment mining permits. 

Bathurst bought the Escarpment mine from L&M for US $35m with another $40m (NZ$60m), due when Bathurst had shipped 25,000 tonnes of coal and another $40m payment when one million tonnes of coal had been shipped.  Bathurst’s argument to get out of this deal was that it hadn’t “shipped” any Denniston coal out of the country as it only went to Holcim Cement in Westport, so it didn’t owe L&M Mining the cash. But in April the Court of Appeal disagreed, and Bathurst’s shares plummeted. 

Bathurst is now seeking leave to challenge the Court of Appeal decision to the Supreme Court. 

Talley’s brings political donations into the mix 

When Bathurst teamed up with Talley’s to form BT Mining – and bought up Solid Energy’s assets on the West Coast and in the North Island, it also took on board Talley’s political connections.  Talley’s is a major funder of NZ First, donating $10,000 to Shane Jones for the 2017 election campaign, and, it turns out, giving the NZ First Foundation nearly $27,000 between 2017 and 2019. 

In May 2020, Regional Development Minister Jones  promised West Coast councils that DOC stewardship land would be open for business if New Zealand First has any say in it after the election.

“If we are blessed with the opportunity to create another government, NZ First will be pushing for extractive industries to occupy a very important position, post-Covid, because we have to create jobs and generate overseas income.”

It is clear that Jones is out to bat for his friends at BT Mining, and we hope that these climate killers won’t get any traction in the upcoming “shovel ready” decisions to be made by the Government.   

As former Chief Executive of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres wrote in the Financial Times: 

“The crux of the matter is that the pandemic-induced financial decisions made over the next 12 months will shape the global economy for the next decade, just when we must halve our emissions. The recovery packages will cost trillions of dollars. Governments are unlikely to have the resources to direct capital at such scale towards other urgent global needs for years. We cannot jump out of the frying pan of the pandemic and into the fire of exacerbated climate change. By that time we will have run out of fire hydrants.” 

The post From indigenous mudfish to the climate: you can’t trust Bathurst Resources appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

 Please feel free to use all or any of this guide – we offer both a summary and short form submission guide, as well as a more detailed longer submission guide.

NB: The accompanying photos illustrate the landscape, wetlands and native fish threatened by the mine expansion.

SUMMARY

Bathurst Coal Ltd has applied for consents from Environment Canterbury and Selwyn District Council to expand its open-cast coal mine operation at Coalgate in Canterbury. The bulk of this low-grade coal goes to Fonterra’s dairy factories to heat and dry milk powder.

Making a submission

ECan and Selwyn DC invite public submissions on this through their website form here: https://ecan.govt.nz/do-it-online/resource-consents/notifications-and-submissions/notified-consents/bathurst-coal-limited/

The deadline for making a submission is 5 pm, Monday 18 May.

Backgrounder on Bathurst’s Coalgate mine operation is here (thanks to Malvern Hills Protection Society).

The submission form asks whether you oppose/support each consent, then asks for reasons.

Useful tips

• Don’t forget to add your contact details to your submission – name, address, email, phone number
• Put the issue into your own words and tell your own story – it’s always more powerful.
• Be brief, clear, simple – think of those hearing it as your friends.
• You don’t have to be an expert and it’s OK to be emotional.
• It’s always best to say you wish to be heard. This way you receive all the updates and information, and it’s easy to withdraw your intention to speak nearer the hearing time.

SUBMISSION – SHORT FORM

Why we oppose these consent applications:

• Coal kills the climate – we must stop producing and using coal if we are to bring emissions down. The low-grade coal from this mine is used locally for industrial heating, a use for which climate-friendly alternatives exist.   Currently the Resource Management Act does not allow ‘climate impact’ as grounds for refusing a consent. However, this RMA clause is being reviewed and is likely to be changed to be compatible with the Zero Carbon Act. In 2019 ECan committed to declaring and acting on a climate and ecological emergency. As elected representatives, your primary responsibility is to the health of your local population and whenua.
• The mine supports an unsustainable model of land-use – 90% of this low-grade coal goes to Fonterra dairy factories. Their commercial model (the intensive production of low price/high volume commodities) requires a degree of irrigation, fertiliser use and livestock overstocking that is harmful to both the natural environment and human health. Calls for a change to this model are growing steadily stronger and more mainstream.
• Disregard for environmental degradation and threat to biodiversity – Bathurst have repeatedly breached their existing consents for discharge to local waterways that are the habitat of the endangered Canterbury mudfish. We have no confidence they will not continue to do so.
• Negative impact on local environment and community – as well as the impact on indigenous biodiversity and cultural values, Selwyn D.C’s own Notification decision report identified the impact of noise and dust, pollution of local waterway, landscape effects and overall amenity values as being more than minor.   Bathurst has also repeatedly failed to provide the required information on these issues.

SUBMISSION – LONG FORM

The issue

“Bathurst Coal Ltd has applied to Environment Canterbury and Selwyn District Council for consents [under the Resource Management Act] to continue operating and expand an open cast coal mine (known as Canterbury Coal Mine), including retrospective and future operation at Bush Gully Road, Malvern Hills, Selwyn.”

This comprises 6 specific consents to discharge mining operation effluent to air, water and land (for detail see here ). These consents are for a period from 20 to 35 years.

For a useful backgrounder on Bathurst’s Coalgate operations see here (thanks to Malvern Hills Protection Society).

The consent process

“When a resource consent application is received by the council, we conduct an assessment of its environmental effects. If the environmental effects are more than minor, the resource consent will require public notification….”

‘When we make a decision on a resource consent, we consider:

• the effects on the natural environment
• how the activity will affect other people’s use and enjoyment of the environment.” (from ECan website)

Using these criteria, ECan and Selwyn D.C. have decided to publicly notify Bathurst’s application and so are inviting the public to make submissions on each of the consent requests.

Public submissions close at 5pm on Monday 18 May.   (This deadline was extended due to the Covid 19 crisis)

Find Bathurst’s application and use ECan’s submission form here

SUBMISSION – CANA

We oppose each application for resource consent, as well as the overall expansion of the mine, because:

1. Coal kills the climate – coal is a major contributor to global carbon emissions, and thus to the current climate and ecological crisis humanity is facing.  We recognise that currently this is not a legal grounds for refusing an application under the Resource Management Act, but we urge you to take it into consideration because:
   • In 2019 ECan recognised the current climate and ecological crisis, declared a climate emergency and agreed to act on it in all its activities. To now allow the expansion of coal mining in your rohe for another 20-30 years makes mockery of the intent of such a declaration.
   • The section of the RMA that expressly disallows the consideration of climate impact is currently under review and may well be changed by the time the extension is awarded. We understand that the Environment Select Committee (ESC) has recommended changes to the RMA to align the Act with provisions and timeframes in the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019. That Act expressly permits decision-makers acting under other legislation to take into account statutory emission targets, budgets and reduction plans. Key changes to the RMA proposed by the ESC include:
   • Requirements for councils to consider ‘emission reduction plans’ and ‘national adaptation plans’ when developing regional policy statements, regional plans and district plans
   • The repeal of RMA provisions that prevent regional councils from considering the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on climate change when making rules in plans or making decisions on applications for resource consent.

The ESC recommends these provisions come into force from 31 December 2021 which aligns with the timeline for the gazettal of the first ‘emissions reduction plan

We would also ask the question: which has primacy – the decisions that a local body makes in response to local public pressure and needs, or the decisions of central government? Does the fact that central Government has not yet passed an amendment to the RMA prevent ECan from acting on its own decisions in that regard? We think not. We urge you to consider ECan’s role as the democratically elected representatives of the local population and your responsibility for protecting our people, our whenua and all other creatures within the rohe.

2. Canterbury Coal Mine produces low-grade coal used locally for heating. This is low-grade sub-bituminous coal sold primarily to local dairy factories, schools and other organisations for heating. In a climate crisis, alternatives to coal for heating  There is no justification for mining this coal and the mining should be phased out, not extended.

3. The mine supports unsustainable farming practices on the Canterbury plains – most of the coal is used in local dairy factories for drying milk powder. There is growing substantial evidence that such farming practices –

1. • Due to overstocking, intensive irrigation and high nitrogenous fertitiser use, have been and continue to be destructive to both water supply and water quality in Canterbury.
   • Are unsustainable and incompatible with the health of our land (monoculture, loss of biodiversity), people (nitrates in the groundwater), and animals (lack of shelterbelts and intensive farming practices).
   • Are a threat to New Zealand’s food security – this area is naturally better suited to wheat and grain growing – these were once grown there but now have to be imported.
   • Follow a high volume/low quality intensive business model that is increasingly uneconomic as well as destructive of farming communities.

4. Bathurst’s history of refusing to comply with resource consents – this company has a long history of discharge consent infraction. ECan’s own website documents fines for 27 infractions against discharging mining effluent into the local waterways, the last such being November 2019.   Selwyn DC has also served abatement notices against the company for consent infrIngements.   We have no confidence that a company that yearly gets fined for consent breaches has any intention of respecting any future consent requirements.

5. Threat to the critically endangered Canterbury mudfish – Aotearoa’s native animal and plant species are disappearing rapidly under what has been termed ‘death by a thousand small cuts’. Every expansion of human activity into a wild/unused area means less space for other species. This has been shown recently and vividly by the tiny respite that Nature enjoyed during the COVID-19 lockdown.    This mining operation is very specifically a threat to the endangered Canterbury mudfish, whose habitat is now very restricted. The continual flouting of notices against discharging mining effluent into the mudfish habitat shows that this operator cannot be trusted to protect the environment they are working in and must not be allowed to continue their destruction.

6. Minimisation of the negative impact on local environment and community – as well as the impact on indigenous biodiversity and cultural values, Selwyn D.C. has identified the impact of noise and dust, pollution of local waterways, landscape effects and overall amenity and cultural values as being more than minor in its effects.

The Council’s view of these effects are summarised in their Notification Decision, which may be found here. We argue that these impacts are NOT minor.

We also note that Bathurst has repeatedly failed to provide the required information to local authorities in a timely fashion to allow them to fully assess these resource consent applications.

For all these reasons, therefore, we argue that Bathurst’s application for resource consents to enable it to extend its coal-mining operations at Canterbury Mines should not be approved.

The post Bathurst Coalgate expansion submission guide appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.

Saturday 6th April
7.30-9.30pm
St Nicholas Church Hall
Corner of Frankleigh and Barrington Rd
Christchurch

This is the chance for Canterbury anti-coal activists to network with other local activists and with the CANA National Organising Group.

Drinks and nibbles provided

Please RSVP for catering purposes to canterburycoalaction@gmail.com by Thurs. 4th April.

We are grateful for your koha.

The post Christchurch, 6 April: CANA and Canterbury Coal Action Get-Together! appeared first on Coal Action Network Aotearoa.