Mining – India 1
1. CIL to award contracts for seven underground mines in 6 months 1
2. Controversial Mine Approved By Indian Government 2
3. Iron ore export prices to China up 12 per cent 3
4. Gujarat NRE Coke plans to ramp up Australia production 4
5. Vedanta to invest Rs 42 cr on Lanjigarh peripheral growth 5
6. Vedanta to set up copper-rods plant in UAE: report 6
Mining – International 6
7. Production pruning - Chinese domestic iron ore mines shutting 6
8. Tunlan mine blast exposes safety challenge 7
9. EPA Greenlights 42 Mountaintop Removal Mining Permits 12
10. China Approves Minmetals’ $1.2 Billion Mines Purchase 13
11. Mine safety system goes global 14
12. ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Activists Try to Block Start of Pascua Lama Mine 17
Other News 22
13. Scientists, politicians should come together on climate change: Expert 23
14. Poorest countries unprepared for impacts of climate change 24
15. Ranchi city of India is facing acute water crisis. 25
16. "Third World War over water looming" 27
Mining – India
CIL to award contracts for seven underground mines in 6 months
15 May 2009, 1717 hrs IST, PTI
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NEW DELHI: State-run Coal India is likely to award the turnkey contracts for its Rs 2,500-crore project to develop seven underground mines with
an estimated reserve of 400 million tonnes in six months, a top company official said.
"The process to award contracts for the underground coal mines would be completed in six months," Coal India Ltd (CIL) Chairman Partha S Bhattacharyya told reporters over phone on Friday.
CIL has finalised the NIT (notice inviting tender) norms and would be floating a limited tender within a fortnight to invite bids from the nine-shortlisted companies, he added.
In all, 17 corporates had in June 2008 responded to the expression of interest floated by the country's largest coal producer for developing the seven underground mines spread across its five subsidiaries in West Bengal and Jharkhand.
Among the companies short-listed for the project include Reliance Infrastructure, Walter South East Asia, Anglo American, Essel Mining and Essar Mineral Resources.
Navratna PSU CIL plans to produce 100 million tonnes of coal from its underground operations by 2016-17. It intends to produce about 20 million tonnes of coal annually from the seven underground mines.
To ensure healthy participation of companies in the final tendering process, the coal major has relaxed its NIT norms.
Instead of seeking a bank guarantee for 15 years from the companies roped in for the project, CIL has decided to ask for an annual guarantee, which would reduce the upfront fees of contractors. The guarantee would be renewed annually.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Indl-Goods--Svs/Metals--Mining/CIL-to-award-contracts-for-seven-underground-mines-in-6-months/articleshow/4535454.cms
Controversial Mine Approved By Indian Government
Tuesday, 19 May 2009, 12:07 pm
Press Release: Survival International
Controversial Mine Approved By Indian Government
The Indian government has given Britain’s Vedanta Resources final approval to start a controversial bauxite mine in the hills of the Dongria Kondh tribe.
The tribespeople, furious that the lush hills where they live will be devastated, have mounted a series of blockades and large-scale protests in recent years. They say the mine will end their way of life forever, and have vowed to block Vedanta from destroying the top of their mountain, which they hold sacred.
The Indian ministry for environment and forests has now granted Vedanta the environmental clearance it requires to start mining. The mine, in the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, eastern India, could begin operations within weeks.
Dongria Kondh spokesman Lodu said, ‘If the government give the mountain, we will say ‘sell your own mountain’. This is the Dongria Kondh’s hill, it is not yours to sell.’
Vedanta is already operating a bauxite refinery at the foot of the mountain. Hundreds of people have lost their homes to the refinery, which has been condemned by government officials for its ‘alarming’ rate of pollution.
Actress Joanna Lumley, narrating Survival’s film ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain’, said, ‘It’s only because the Dongria have known their lands so intimately and for so long that this extraordinary forest survives. The Dongria know that [the mine] will ruin their homes, pollute their lands and destroy their lives. We cannot let their fate be decided in a corporate boardroom.’
Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Unless this decision is reversed, it will be the death knell for the Dongria Kondh. Much has been made during the elections this month of India’s status as the world’s largest democracy, but from the Dongria Kondhs’ point of view there’s precious little democracy at work.’
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0905/S00292.htm
Iron ore export prices to China up 12 per cent
Ishita Ayan Dutt / Kolkata May 19, 2009, 0:43 IST
Iron ore export price to China has increased by around 12 per cent since end of April on the back of higher ocean freight rates.
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According to industry sources, price of ore having 63 per cent iron content increased from $48 a tonne to $54 a tonne. However, the increase has been attributed to a fluctuation in freight rates rather than a demand surge. But Rahul Baldota, president, Federation of Indian Mineral Industries (FIMI) said that the increase was not across the board.
Even though iron ore imports into China had surged, most of it was from Australia. Industry sources said, China preferred to buy the Goa ore which has less iron content than the high grade ore. Iron ore imports into China in April stood at a record 57 million tonnes.
Industry representatives feel that the iron ore prices might not dip to the extent it was expected to at the beginning of the year. “We thought prices would dip 50 per cent, but that is unlikely to happen. China is expected to import around 600 million tonnes of iron ore as against 440 million tonnes last year, which would have an impact on global prices. But whether it will be able to offset the lower demand from the European countries, remains to be seen.” The iron contracts for the year have not been settled as yet.
In the domestic spot market, prices in the eastern part of the Indian market were much higher than the export prices. Baldota said, the demand was higher in the eastern side. For higher grade iron ore lumps, prices were hovering around $81 a tonne, though the same ore was being sold in the southern part of the country at much lower prices.
The iron ore scenario is somewhat similar to the trend in steel prices, where ruling domestic prices are higher than that prevailing in the rest of the world.
According to a forecast made by the World Steel Association (WSA), India would be the only major economy that would see a growth in apparent usage of steel in 2009. WSA represents approximately 180 steel producers including 18 of the world’s 20 largest steel companies.
http://news.google.co.in/news/url?sa=t&ct2=in/0_0_s_2_0_t&usg=AFQjCNEaBmLh7EfTnGga7TaYhIWF_9sNfw&sig2=4rItXbE5q0oqeOXrPtexiw&cid=1353610254&ei=rIoSSrDpK4ri6wOVzIugAQ&rt=SEARCH&vm=STANDARD&url=http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/iron-ore-export-prices-to-china12-per-cent/358523/
Gujarat NRE Coke plans to ramp up Australia production
18 May 2009, 2000 hrs IST, ET Bureau
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KOLKATA: Gujarat NRE Coke, one of the largest independent producers of met coke in India, plans to ramp up production in its two Australian
coking coal mines from 0.8 million tonnes in 2008-09 to 2 mt this fiscal.
The company’s Australian subsidiary — Gujarat NRE Minerals Ltd — which recently secured a $50 million long-term loan to support the minedevelopment, expects to obtain another $25 million loan in a month’s time. The company is also open to new Australian mine acquisitions and is set to emerge as one of the largest coking coal producers in Australia.
"We are looking at new mining assets in Australia. We already have theinfrastructure and a strong team there and hence it makes sense to undertake acquisitions in Australia. This apart, we will more than double production from the mines this year," Gujarat NRE Coke chief financial officer P.R. Kannan said.
Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL) has invested Rs 20 crore in Gujarat NRE Coke through the preferential allotment route.
Gujarat NRE has set a target to sell at least one million tonnes of coke this year even amidst the global recession compared to 0.9 million tonnes in 2008-09. "While 35% of our sales last year were generated from exports to Brazil, Argentina and Europe, it will come down this year due to poor international demand and likely to contribute around 15%.
The domestic market, which is affected to a lesser extent, will make up for the shortfall," said Mr Kannan. The company, which is setting up 60 MW captive power units in its plants in Dharwad, Khambalia and Bhachau, plans to commission them by June 2010. "The first phase of 15 MW is expected to be operational by December. The investment behind these plants, which will use the waste heat recovery process, is around Rs 240 crore," said Mr Kannan.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Indl-Goods--Svs/Metals--Mining/Gujarat-NRE-Coke-plans-to-ramp-up-Australia-production/articleshow/4548340.cms
Vedanta to invest Rs 42 cr on Lanjigarh peripheral growth
BS Reporter / Kolkata/ Berhampur May 19, 2009, 0:39 IST
Vedanta Resources, which is setting up a alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Orissa’s Kalahandi district, will invest about Rs 42 crore this year on peripheral development around the plant as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.
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The company’s detailed investment plan would be decided after a high-level meeting of the revenue divisional commissioner, district collector, company representatives and local representatives.
“We will chalk out the detailed investment plan of the company for peripheral development of the Lanjigarh area after the end of the model code of conduct for elections”, said Satyabrata Sahu, revenue divisional commissioner (southern division) and also the chairman of peripheral development committee of Vedanta Resources.
The model code of conduct for the elections in Orissa would be in place till May 18, even though the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in the state ended on April 23.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/vedanta-to-invest-rs-42-crlanjigarh-peripheral-growth/358525/
Vedanta to set up copper-rods plant in UAE: report
India Infoline News Service / Mumbai May 19, 2009 10:43
The plant will be built in Fujairah, south of the U.A.E., and will be completed by December
Vedanta Resources Plc reportedly plans to build a copper-rods plant in the United Arab Emirates to supply cables to the region’s power grids. The company will spend US$15mn on the project, which will have a production capacity of 100,000 metric tons a year, the report quoted. The plant will be built in Fujairah, south of the U.A.E., and will be completed by December, the report added.
http://www.indiainfoline.com/news/innernews.asp?storyId=101976&lmn=1
Mining – International
Production pruning - Chinese domestic iron ore mines shutting
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Reuters reported that roughly half of China's iron ore mines may have shut down since prices dropped, opening the door for other low cost producers to supply China with the key mineral for making building materials.
Many iron ore mines sprouted up in China when prices of the commodity soared but falling prices have put cost pressure on the smaller domestic producer.
Mr Anthony Loo MD of Rio Tinto China said at a China economic conference in Hong Kong that "We believe that perhaps up to half of domestic iron ore mines are currently shuttered.”
He said that imports lower cost producers around the world have displaced domestic production.”
China imported a record 57 million tonnes of iron ore in April, an all time high up by 9% from a month ago and 33% greater than last April. China's increase in iron ore imports helps miners like Rio, which are used to competing heavily with domestic producers.
(Sourced from Reuters)
http://steelguru.com/news/index/2009/05/19/OTUwMjk%3D/Production_pruning_-_Chinese_domestic_iron_ore_mines_shutting.html
Tunlan mine blast exposes safety challenge
By Jianjun Tu
A methane blast at the Tunlan coal mine in Shanxi on February 22 killed 78 miners and the last body was not recovered until five days later.
China's numerous collieries, most of them township and village enterprises (TVEs), have long been the world's most deadly. Since the inception of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, official sources have put China's cumulative coal mining fatalities at more than 250,000, and independent estimates are much higher. While the official coal mining death tolls in 2008 were 3,210, a 54% drop compared with 6,995 in 2002, China's 2008 fatality rate of 1.182 deaths per million tonnes of coal mined means that the world's largest coal producer's safety standard still
lags far behind the second largest one, the United States, by at least 55 years [1].
Due to the recent economic slowdown, China has been experiencing a potential coal surplus for the first time since the late 1990s, which should offer a long-awaited window of opportunity to address its safety challenge. Yet, the deadly Tunlan accident has revealed that the fundamental illness of China's safety governance mechanisms remains unscratched by scrutiny.
The Tunlan coal mine blast
Unlike most of China's coal mining accidents, the blast at Tunlan has nothing to do with TVE mines, which account for about one third of China's coal output, but 77% of its coal mining fatalities [2]. Instead, the Tunlan Mine boasts one of the best mining facilities in China. Its parent company, Shanxi Coking Coal Group (SCCG), is China's largest and the world's second-biggest coking coal producer.
Tunlan is not only the first SCCG mine to utilize fully mechanized mining equipment, but also the first colliery in the world to utilize the "Large Cross Section Supporting Technology", which is Tunlan's proprietary invention and won the first class prize of the National Technical Advancement Award.
Being a gaseous mine with fugitive methane emissions rate at about 20 cubic meters per tonne of coal mined, Tunlan has installed a highly efficient ventilation system, and utilized coal bed methane to fuel its boilers. Many of Tunlan's dedicated underground inspectors are equipped with state-of-the-art methane detectors, which further eliminate the possibility of explosion. Since 2004, Tunlan has prided itself for zero mining fatalities. Not only were Chinese officials surprised by the bloody explosion at one of the country's best collieries; many survivors were caught tragically unprepared.
Another unique quality of the Tunlan blast rests on how the accident was covered by the Chinese media, regarded as the propaganda machine of the state and ruling party. While the reporting of major catastrophes is a sensitive topic under heavy government control, the Chinese media nevertheless have become increasingly critical toward coal mining accidents.
The authorities classified the country's most deadly coal mine accident, at Laobaidong, in Shanxi, in 1960, which killed 682 miners, as a "state secret"; it was eventually disclosed by China Coal Post in 1998 [3]. On July 17, 2001, when 81 coal miners died in an inundation accident in Nandang County, courageous reporters working for Yangcheng Evening News and other media risked their lives to get the story for the outside world [4].
Yet, in recent years, Chinese media has become less critical on sensitive topics, which is especially evident in the news coverage of Tunlan blast.
Drivers underlying the catastrophe
Though the February 22 blast happened at a state-owned mine, the most important contributing factor is the authorities' inability to develop an effective strategy to manage China's TVE mines. After China was opened to the outside world in 1979, state-owned mines were unable to meet burgeoning demand due to heavy welfare obligations to their bloated workforces and retirees.
Beijing was forced to allow private investment into the coal industry. In 1991, the number of TVE mines reached an astonishing 100,000, and the share of coal production by TVE mines grew to 46% in 1997 from 17% in 1979 [5], which soon led to problems such as tax evasion, environmental degradation and mounting accidents.
In the late 1990s, lured by a temporary coal surplus, Beijing launched a national campaign to close TVE mines. Since then, China's coal industry has been a love-and-hate relationship between state and private enterprises: 1) with governmental favoritism, state-owned mines expanded rapidly; 2) Beijing ordered targets for TVE mines' closure; 3) fearing loss of tax revenues and often personal gains, local officials quietly resisted Beijing's orders, and many TVE mines that were supposed to be closed still secretly operate; 4) the burgeoning economy needed much more coal than state enterprises could meet, and Beijing realized it had no choice but to loosen permit requirements; and 5) TVE mines flourished in the market again.
Though TVE mines are the de facto swing producer in the Chinese coal market, with a critical role to meet any shortfall between domestic demand and what state-owned mines can produce, their contribution to the Chinese economy has been intentionally downplayed in the past.
Instead, TVE mines are the easiest targets whenever it becomes necessary to point fingers. Because the number of TVE mines is being reduced to 10,000 by 2010, the private coal mining industry as a whole has no incentive to make long-term investments to improve mines safety. Overproduction (typically 150% to 300% of design capacity) and falsification of death tolls whenever possible are the norms. While TVE mines are the weakest link of China's coal industry, many state-owned mines are expanding at breakneck pace and often produce much more than they should without adequate safety margins.
To solve its safety challenge, Guangdong, one of the most developed provinces and a major coal consumer in China, shut down all collieries within its geographic boundary in 2005. Though undeniably effective, such an administrative decision not only deeply hurt the interests of all stakeholders in Guangdong's coal industry and wasted indigenous resources, but also put extra pressure on China's over-loaded transportation infrastructure. In addition, the subsequent transferring of sizable death tolls from a wealthy coastal province to much poorer hinterland areas such as Shanxi is also morally questionable.
Similarly, in the wake of the Chinese Spring Festival, annual sessions of people's congresses, and people's political consultative conferences, TVE mines have been closed across the country just for the sake of political sensitivity.
In January 2009, though China's national coal output declined by 11% on a year-over-year basis, production by key state-owned mines actually grew by 12% on a similar basis [6]. As a result, many state-owned mines were operating beyond their safety margins in early 2009.
Though Tunlan's annual capacity was retrofitted from 4.0 to 5.0 million tonnes in 2005, an anonymous source cited 4.0 million tonnes as Tunlan's optimal output level, and 4.5 million tonnes as its safety threshold, beyond which equipment overcapacity and worker fatigue would make its operations prone to accidents. In 2008, Tunlan produced 4.62 millions tonnes of coal, which already exceeded the alleged threshold, so whether the extensive TVE mine closures early this year has encouraged Tunlan to operate beyond its safety margin is a legitimate question that deserves attention during the accident investigation.
The heavy death tolls at Tunlan are also a direct result of the low productivity of China's coal industry. Considered to be one of China's best collieries, Tunlan is actually not exceptional in this regard and as many as 436 miners were crowding its tunnels when the blast occurred.
To counter individual accidents that were causing heavy fatalities, the Shanxi government in 2005 put limits on the number of miners allowed to work at an underground colliery in accordance with its design capacity. For a 0.09 million tonne mine, the maximum number of allowable miners is 29. For a 0.9 million tonne mine, the limit is set at 99, instead of 290, because of the expected economy of scale [7]. Given Tunlan's design capacity of 5 million tonnes, 436 underground miners at one shift do not even meet the
expected minimum productivity standard implied by Shanxi government's 2005 regulation.
To make matters worse, both Tunlan's investment on safety equipment and emergency training for its miners are insufficient. When the blast occurred, Tunlan's methane alarm system did not set off a signal. While the accident at Tunlan was a localized methane explosion, the number of miners that were directly killed was not so high. Yet if the evacuation had been implemented under an ideal scenario (for example, well-trained miners with adequate protection), the final death toll would have been far less than the actual level.
Unfortunately, many first-round survivors still had no clue what had happened even after they were ordered to evacuate; some did not at first wear their self-rescue equipment. For those who remembered such a procedure, several of them were reported to have fainted when they rushed through the mine shaft. As a result of such a messy evacuation, all 340 miners evacuated from the mine showed symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Of 114 miners hospitalized, 11 died and 26 were found to be in critical conditions.
To further complicate the matter, the lack of qualified employees is endemic to China's coal industry. Low incomes, highly undesirable work conditions and negative exposure in the Chinese media make it extremely difficult for Chinese collieries to attract and retain qualified employees, which creates a shortage of the expertise required to raise mine safety standards.
According to the Safety Training Center of the SCCG, more than 80% of Tunlan's trained safety inspectors, arguably the most important position for safety operations, only received middle school education, and none of them has a college or higher level degree [8]. As Tunlan is actually one of the best state-owned collieries in China, the picture of staff qualification is far bleaker for other coal mining enterprises, especially China's numerous TVE mines.
Is there a way out?
Given the large size of operating collieries in China, Beijing's efforts to reduce the number of operating mines is legitimate. Yet, instead of blindly closing coal mines whenever a major accident happens in the adjacent region or just for the sake of avoiding political sensitivity, the authorities should take each mine's unique conditions into consideration even if a safety rectification campaign is necessary.
At present, Beijing plans to reduce the number of "small mines" (a politically correct terminology for TVE mines) to 10,000 by 2010. At the same time, shutting down a coal mine based solely on its capacity is not only unfair for small collieries that strive to meet safety standards but also encourages more to operate illegally across the country, which will have a detrimental impact on the accounting methods used in calculating Chinese coal statistics.
TVE mines are widely regarded as the black sheep of China's coal industry, and private colliery owners are often portrayed by the media as rude, self-aggrandizing and tax-evading upstarts. Yet, since 1978, TVE mines have provided more than 35% of China's cumulative coal output to fuel China's burgeoning economy [9], and have become an indispensable part of China's energy sector.
They were always Beijing's last resort whenever a coal supply shortage occurred due to the flexibility of their operations. As a result of the extremely complex geological structure of China's coal resources, a large portion of Chinese coal deposits are only suitable for small-scale underground mining operations. Without a reasonable presence of private enterprises, the level of competition required for long-term healthy development of China's coal mining industry cannot be ensured.
Further, TVE mines are important taxpayers in many coal-producing regions, they employ large number of migrant workers, and are important to China's social stability. Not only the governmental favoritism towards state-owned mines needs to be reconsidered, the indispensable role of TVE mines to the Chinese economy should also be formally recognized.
The most formidable measurement imposed by Beijing regarding safety management so far may be the "The Safety Framework Governing Resignation of Responsible Officials". Meng Xuelong, the former governor of Shanxi, was the first provincial cadre in China to resign under such a safety framework after a major mining-related accident in September 2008. Following Meng's resignation, Beijing appointed Wang Jun, the former director of the State Administration of Work Safety, as the acting governor of Shanxi. While Wang Jun's political ascendancy in Shanxi has shown Beijing's determination to reign in China's chaotic coal industry, the Tunlan blast nevertheless demonstrates that the "top-down" punitive measurements used toward government officials alone are insufficient to solve China's mounting safety challenges.
As the Chinese economy becomes increasingly market-oriented, Beijing should adopt an alternative approach that can be described as "enforceable sticks with sufficient carrots". While punitive measurements for safety violation are an indispensable component to solve China's safety challenges, enforceability should be a prerequisite for introducing such enactment.
For instance, introducing overly ambitious targets (for example, TVE mine closures) is a very counterproductive practice that should be avoided. More importantly, a legal and taxation environment featuring transparency and stability should be nurtured to create a fair playground for all coal enterprises, especially TVE mines. Only if such types of carrots are made available can sufficient resources in the private coal mining industry be directed towards safety investment and long-term growth instead of attention being spent on beating around the rules and colluding with local officials.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KE19Cb02.html
EPA Greenlights 42 Mountaintop Removal Mining Permits
Mon May 18, 2009 6:39pm EDT
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By SustainableBusiness - SustainableBusiness
Environmentalists on Friday called on the Obama administration to intervene in the permitting process of 42 new mountaintop removal coal mining sites in Appalachia.
Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV) announced that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given the green light to the Army Corps of Engineers to approve as many as 42 new permits for destructive mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. If true, and if these permits--more than were even approved during recent years by the Bush Administration--were to proceed, this could mean certain destruction of hundreds of miles of Appalachian streams and hundreds of acres of America's oldest mountains.
"Because it appears that the EPA is unwilling to intervene, it is now imperative that the White House Council on Environmental Quality take immediate action to stop the bulldozers," Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said in a statement. "The Obama administration should take swift action to fix the flawed "fill rule" that enables this type of devastating mining and should act decisively to save the mountains, rivers and communities of Appalachia."
In recent months a series of decisions by the EPA and the Interior Department led many environmentalists to believe that the Obama administration might put an end to the destructive coal mining practice. But this latest announcement suggests otherwise.
"It is unfortunate that, when EPA once again began reviewing proposed coal mining permits earlier this year, alarmists claimed that a moratorium on permit issuance was being proposed," Rahall, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a telephone news conference. "That was not that case then, and it is not the case now."
Rahall said the EPA so far has objected to only six of the 48 Clean Water Act permits the Corps of Engineers had proposed to issue to mountaintop removal coal mining sites.
"Today's reported approval of a wave of new mountaintop removal coal mines would represent a leap in the wrong direction. With the bulldozers and explosives standing by in Appalachia, the Obama administration should take bold action to protect communities, streams and mountains before it's too late," Pope said.
The EPA issued a short statement early Friday evening, in which it said, "Twenty-eight of the projects have two or fewer valley fills. Eleven have no valley fills at all. None have more than six."
It continues: "EPA's understanding is that none of the projects would permanently impact high value streams that flow year-round. By contrast, EPA has opposed six permits because they would all result in significant adverse impacts to high value streams, involve large numbers of valley fills, and impact watersheds with extensive previous mining impacts."
In Related News...
The Department of Energy announced $2.4 billion in stimulus funding to be applied to the development of carbon capture and storage technologies. These technologies are part of what has been given the misleading marketing label "clean coal."
http://www.reuters.com/article/mnEnergy/idUS292245304520090518
China Approves Minmetals’ $1.2 Billion Mines Purchase
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By Jesse Riseborough
May 18 (Bloomberg) -- China Minmetals Group, the country’s biggest metals trader, received approval from the nation’s top economic planner for the $1.2 billion acquisition of mines from Australia’s OZ Minerals Ltd.
The approval from the National Development and Reform Commission satisfies a key condition of the deal, Melbourne-based OZ said today in a statement. The Australian company is seeking to complete the sale by June 18 after shareholders vote on the proposal on June 11, it said.
Minmetals will gain control of the world’s second-biggest zinc mine and secure supplies of copper, gold and nickel from other operations in Australia and Laos. The sale will allow OZ Minerals to pay down A$1.1 billion ($828 million) in debt.
“While several further Chinese regulatory approvals are required, we are aware of the significance of the NDRC approval that Minmetals has advised us of today,” OZ Minerals Chairman Barry Cusack said in the statement to the Australian stock exchange.
OZ Minerals jumped 5.6 percent to close at 76 Australian cents. The stock has risen 38 percent this year and has a market value of A$2.4 billion.
State-controlled Minmetals must operate the mines using companies that are incorporated, based and managed in Australia, Treasurer Wayne Swan said last month when the nation cleared the sale. The Beijing-based company must maintain or raise production at some of its Australian mines, “subject to economic conditions,” he had said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Riseborough in Melbourne atjriseborough@bloomberg.net
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=ap9cpDuhCn_4&refer=australia
Mine safety system goes global
19 May 2009
A real-time risk management system to improve safety and boost productivity in underground mines will be available globally after a Queensland company was awarded a licence to commercialise the CSIRO technology.
Mackay-based company Mining Logic Solutions has signed an exclusive global licence agreement with CSIRO Exploration and Mining to commercially develop the Nexsys real-time risk management system.
Nexsys allows underground coal mines to interrogate vast amounts of digital information from a variety of sensors and systems throughout the mine, which normally do not communicate with each other.
The system analyses this integrated data to provide real-time risk management and decision support for control room operators, including automatic triggering of response plans if it discovers a hazardous condition.
Nexsys can extract critical data from existing proprietary strata control, ventilation monitoring, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and other critical mine monitoring systems and turn this data into knowledge in real-time.
CSIRO Exploration & Mining chief Dr Mike McWilliams said the agreement continues to demonstrate how new technologies developed collaboratively by CSIRO and its partners can benefit the mining industry.
“The potential market for Nexsys is not limited to Australia, it is ideally suited for export to many other countries including India, China, the USA and Canada,” McWilliams said.
“Today, about 60% of mining software used globally originates in Australia – and Nexsys will help that market share grow.”
Nexsys was developed by CSIRO Exploration and Mining with the support of the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) and the Japan Coal Energy Centre (JCOAL).
JCOAL’s input was vital to the success of the program, through financial support, participation in the initial research goals and provision of test sites in Japan to demonstrate the technology.
Mining Logic Solutions Director Dean Kirkwood said the licence agreement is a coup for a Queensland based regional company.
“We are Queensland built and owned, and are delighted to gain access to a technology that has the potential to improve safety and save lives,” Kirkwood said.
“Nexsys will also bring new levels of efficiency to underground coal mines. For example, this technology will enable accidental damage to equipment or breakdowns to be pinpointed and repaired within minutes.”
“We will ask operators exactly what they need to know in real-time and look at additional ways the technology can be used to streamline mine operations.”
The technology will be developed into a commercial-ready product within 12 months.
http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/Article/Mine-safety-system-goes-global/481965.aspx
Flooding could create future problem if not dealt with soon, says monitor
A1
By James Mallory
Flooding at Caribou Mine may leave the facility beyond repair if funds are not secured during the next few months, according to the mine's court-appointed monitor.
Bob Smith is the vice-president of PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is the court-appointed monitor overseeing the idle mine near Bathurst. He said the mine is now slowly filling with water and it doesn't look like there's any money available to do the necessary pumping and drainage.
"It doesn't look very good at this stage in the game, to be honest," said Mr. Smith.
In August 2006, Blue Note Mining Inc., a junior mining company in Montreal, officially announced their purchase of the Caribou and Restigouche mines. The zinc mines, located off Route 180 (the Road to Resources), had been dormant since August 1998, when they closed due to low metal prices and low mineral recovery rates. Last December, Blue Note shut down the two mines due to plummeting metal prices, laying off about 150 workers in the process. In the time between beginning operations in the summer of 2007 and last December's shutdown, Caribou incurred a $85 million debt with creditors and suppliers, of which $23 million is taxpayers' money.
The operation has been protected under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act since February. Blue Note had paid for de-watering in the first couple months following the closure, but has since stopped its pumping efforts.
There are currently seven to eight employees at the mine doing security work and environmental necessities.
Mr. Smith said the mine is now filling up with water and there are no plans to stop it. He said the mine will continually fill with water until everything is flooded.
"It slowly fills. There's five levels in the mine so we basically removed all the equipment out of the mine except one piece. Level 5 is probably fully flooded at this stage in the game and it's up to Level 4. Level 4 will take a bit longer and once it finishes that, it just keeps moving uphill."
Mr. Smith said the longer the mine is left to flood, the tougher it will be to get the facility back to operational conditions.
"It would take millions. You have to dewater the mine by putting the pumps back in and all the electrics back in, and then you start to dewater the mine. Once you get the water out, you have to get it re-certified, I think, for safety reasons."
In a recent interview with a provincial daily newspaper, Natural Resources spokesperson Matt Jones said the province will intervene only if the flooding poses a danger to the environment. He said that situation would only occur if the water starts overflowing out of the mine.
Mr. Smith said it's hard to fathom why the province would chose to wait instead of acting when the costs for remediation is lower.
"It's probably not that big of a deal right now. But as it continues to move up, it just gets worse and worse and more and more expensive. At this stage. it's probably $800,000 or $1 million to put the mine back to the way it was in February, but if you wait another two months, maybe it's $3 million. If you wait another couple of months after that, it's $5 million and another couple of months later it's $8 million."
Meanwhile, Mr. Smith said close to 100 potential buyers for the mine have been contacted but no offers have come forth.
"We've contacted 80 or 90 people around the world and the answer is nobody's at the table with an offer."
Despite this doom and gloom scenario, Bathurst Mayor Stephen Brunet is still hopeful things can turn around at Caribou.
"We can't forget that they put $120 million in whole thing when they opened it up last time. So that infrastructure is still there that they are brought up to current standards. Although the infrastructure that's being flooded right now is not a good thing...it's not the end of it because there is still the opportunity with the rest of the investments that were put in there to reopen again."
The mayor believes if metal prices turn around, somebody may be willing to incur those extra costs associated with dewatering.
"If the price of material metals goes up again and somebody can make money, they will be there. The world is at a bit of a stand still right now but we've still go the ore."
http://thenorthernlight.canadaeast.com/news/article/670892
ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Activists Try to Block Start of Pascua Lama Mine
By Daniela Estrada
SANTIAGO, May 18 (IPS) - As Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold gets ready to start construction at the Pascua Lama mine, straddling the Argentine-Chilean border, activists in Chile are scrambling to block the ambitious mining project while calling for an investigation of supposed irregularities committed in the approval process.
Public opposition to Pascua Lama resurged on May 7 when the company announced simultaneously in Toronto, Santiago and Buenos Aires that it had the necessary permits to start construction on the mine at 4,000 metres altitude in the Andes mountains, and that work may begin in September - at the start of the southern hemisphere spring - or even earlier.
The governments of Chile and Argentina, which issued environmental permits for the mine in 2006 and 2007, respectively, reached an agreement a few weeks ago on how the firm is to be taxed. Barrick blamed the delay in the project on this complex negotiation between the two countries.
The announcement that work would begin catalysed activists. But what really riled them was the participation of Chile’s mining minister, Santiago González, in the press conference in which the company announced the start of construction work on the mine.
At the news briefing, González said Pascua Lama was "very important" to the government, as the world’s first binational mining project and the first to be carried out under the mining integration treaty signed by Chile and Argentina in 1997.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández, who received the Barrick executives in the seat of government, made similar remarks.
But five days later, on May 12, Rodrigo Weisner, director of the General Directorate of Water (DGA) stoked the controversy when he said his office was still studying two permits needed to start work on the mine.
In an e-mail interview with IPS, the vice president of corporate affairs and communications at Barrick South America, Rodrigo Jiménez, said the company has the "key construction permits" that "enable it to begin to assign contracts and start to move in terms of development of infrastructure."
By the time the "large-scale" construction gets underway, in September or earlier, the company plans to have the pending permits that are now in the process of being granted, he said.
For those opposed to Pascua Lama, this complicated scenario is part of a string of irregularities that have marred the evaluation and approval process for the mine, which will involve an investment of between 2.8 and 3.0 billion dollars.
The open-pit gold and silver mine will be located 4,000 metres up in the Andes mountains. Approximately 75 percent of the mineral reserves to be tapped by the company are in the northern Chilean region of Atacama, and the rest are in the northwestern Argentine province of San Juan.
Environmental organisations, local residents of the Huasco Valley below the mine, representatives of the Catholic Church, Diaguita Indians claiming the land as their own, and local and foreign activists have been protesting the project for years.
Their main fears are the dangers posed to three glaciers near the mine and the pollution of the key sources of water for 70,000 small farmers in the Huasco Valley, the only valley in northern Chile that has not yet been affected by the operations of mining corporations, say activists.
Environmentalists and other activists blame the water crisis plaguing the arid north of Chile on the uncontrolled expansion of private sector mining in the last two decades.
After Barrick received the environmental permits for the mine in 2006 and 2007, the company submitted other parts of the project to the evaluation process.
According to opponents of Pascua Lama, this means the initiative was never evaluated as a whole, but in bits and pieces, which made it impossible to gauge its real impact. They also complain that many aspects were modified along the way, bypassing Chile’s environmental laws.
In a May 14 meeting with foreign correspondents, Chile’s environment minister Ana Lya Uriarte acknowledged that several parts of the project were approved separately, but said the most critical aspect, the construction and operation of the mine itself, was approved on the basis of strict criteria in 2006.
Activists are also sceptical of the effectiveness of the glacier and river management and monitoring plans designed by the company to fulfil the main condition set by the centre-left government: that "the company will only remove the minerals in such a way that the Toro 1, Toro 2 and Esperanza glaciers will not be removed, relocated, destroyed or physically affected."
The company had initially proposed "moving" the glaciers.
"From the point of view of the care and use of water resources, for example, there will be 49 monitoring points for overseeing the quality of water in Chilean territory, 26 of which are automatic," as well as 38 points in Argentina, said Jiménez.
The Barrick executive argued that the mine "will not modify water quality."
In addition, he said the multi-million dollar agreement reached with the Junta de Vigilancia del Río Huasco - a committee that represents around 2,000 farmers in the Huasco Valley holding water usage rights – in which the company pledged the construction of a dam and other water works would even improve on the current availability of water in the valley.
But even prior to approval of the mining project, the DGA had found that the glaciers in the area were retreating as a result of years of prospecting and exploration by Barrick.
That conclusion was supported by a study by the Military Geographical Institute, the National Agriculture Association (SNA), and the Sustainable Chile Programme, a prominent local environmental group.
"In the sixth year of construction of the mine, the company also plans to destroy a rock glacier, to install the Nevada Norte waste dump there," the head of Sustainable Chile, Sara Larraín, wrote in a May 11 opinion column in which she also pointed to Barrick’s bad environmental reputation around the world.
According to Barrick official Jiménez, the DGA report "was based on a visual inspection" that was not checked against technical measurements. In any case, he argued, the changes undergone by the glaciers were found during the environmental impact assessment process to have been caused by climatic factors, like the El Niño weather phenomenon or global warming.
In response to a question from IPS about whether the government can ensure that the construction and operation of the mine will not affect water quality and quantity in the Huasco Valley, minister Uriarte said that because of its characteristics, the project "will require month-to-month, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and second-to-second monitoring."
In this respect, "the big challenge facing our country is to have an oversight mechanism," like the one currently being discussed in Congress, which would include the creation of an environment ministry to replace CONAMA (the national environment commission headed by Uriarte), an environmental impact assessment service and an environmental regulatory agency.
Uriarte hopes the new institutions will be approved before the end of socialist President Michelle Bachelet’s term, in March 2010.
According to the company, around 5,500 workers will be needed during the construction phase at the mine, and 1,600 permanent jobs will be created. In addition, it estimates that some 4,000 indirect jobs will be generated.
But while the company highlights its social, educational and cultural efforts in the area, it is accused in Huasco Valley, especially by the small farmers, who are mainly Diaguita Indians, of "buying off consciences" and dividing the communities by means of donations.
If the rivers are polluted, the damages to the region’s natural and cultural heritage and to traditional sources of work like farming would far outweigh the benefits offered by the company, say activists.
On May 14, about 100 activists, mainly young people, held a demonstration outside the ministry of mines in the Chilean capital to protest the announced start of work at the Pascua Lama mine, denounce irregularities, and call for a moratorium on mining.
"A review of all aspects of the Pascua Lama project would require, in our view, the declaration of a moratorium on any enterprise that could qualify as large-scale chemical mining that intends to operate at the headwaters of our rivers or in glacier ecosystems," says a statement that the protesters sent to mining minister González.
"There is still a series of pending bureaucratic steps and irregularities that have not been resolved by the company (Barrick), which in our understanding call for a more in-depth reflection, not only with regard to this project in particular but with respect to mining and environmental policies in general, on the occasion of the bicentennial anniversary of Chile’s independence" from Spanish rule, to be commemorated in 2010, the statement adds.
Lucio Cuenca of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts (OLCA), one of the groups that called last week’s protest, complained about the government support the company has received, despite the protests and demands from local residents and activists.
In the activists’ view, Minister González acted as a "spokesman" for Barrick in the press conference.
Cuenca also expressed concern about "the private meetings that President Bachelet has held with senior executives from the company, which the press was not even informed of."
The environmentalists described as a "strange coincidence" the fact that neither Bachelet nor President Fernández in Argentina had backed laws to protect the glaciers.
While Fernández vetoed a law to that end passed by the Argentine Congress, the Chilean leader decided that the government would draft a policy for the protection and conservation of glaciers, which was finally approved on Apr. 14.
Instead of backing a draft law that is stalled in Congress, government officials argued that adoption of a national government policy would bring faster progress in preserving glaciers.
Uriarte clarified that, besides throwing her support behind the national policy, the president signed decrees creating a brand-new inventory of glaciers, which calls for an environmental impact assessment of any project affecting these fragile reserves of water. But environmentalists say the national policy and the inventory are weak instruments.
In both Chile and Argentina, the threats posed to the environment and national security by the 1997 mining treaty have been questioned, because it creates a cross-border area that would be controlled by mining companies. Environmentalists argue that Pascua Lama will pave the way for other binational mining projects.
According to Barrick, the area where the mine will operate holds 17.8 million ounces of gold and 718 million ounces of silver. In the first five years, projected annual output will be between 750,000 and 800,000 ounces of gold and 35 million ounces of silver.
If the deadlines set by the company are met, the mine will begin to operate in 2012 and production will begin in 2013.
Meanwhile, the groups opposed to the project are organising a March for Life, to be held Jun. 13 in Vallenar, in the province of Atacama. They also announced that they would strengthen ties with activists in the Argentine province of San Juan, and that other activities would be planned to prevent construction of the mine. (END/2009)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46895
Other News
Tribals protest partisan attitude
19 May 2009, 0258 hrs IST, TNN
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JALPAIGURI: The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad on Monday made the district administration promise that they would ensure that police
would take proper steps against the persons named in FIRs lodged by the tribal body.
The tribal body has also threatened to launch a massive movement for including the Dooars and Terai under the Sixth Schedule or even form an autonomous council to break away from Bengal, if the administration and the state government continued to "suppress" them.
Jalpaiguri on Monday woke up to a gathering of around 60,000 tribals from various tea gardens of the Dooars and Terai. The mob gathered at the Sports Complex Ground after police stopped them from moving ahead. They were to go to
Jalpaiguri court and stage
a court arrest against the "partisan attitude" of the administration.
The tribal body had taken this decision when the Banerhat police arrested two of theiractivists Alexander Minz and Sanjeev Oraon on May 8, acting on an FIR lodged by some trade union activists.
Police had detained three PCC and CPI(M-L) activists from the arena Amal Roy, Rabi Roy and Indranil Bhattacharya for distributing leaflets supporting the tribals.
It took time for the DM and the SP to convince the tribal leaders that they would be impartial while dealing with complaints against tribals. "We will look into the FIRs lodged by them. If the complaints are found true, steps will be taken," said Jalpaiguri DM Vandana Yadav. "We have asked the leaders to give us a written complaint against officials who they think are partisan. We will start an inquiry. If they are guilty, no one will be spared," said Jalpaiguri SP Anand Kumar.
"We had given a written complaint to police against the persons who were intimidating our supporters. But police did not listen to our appeal. When our men attacked those men, police arrested two of them. We are not saying our men cannot be arrested. But the persons against whom we are lodging FIRs should also be arrested. If the district administration keeps on harassing our men, we will not tolerate it," said Rajesh Lakra, secretary, ABAVP's Dooars-Terai committee.
The protesters dispersed only after assurances from the administration.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Tribals-protest--partisan-attitude/articleshow/4549371.cms
Scientists, politicians should come together on climate change: Expert
19 May 2009, 0159 hrs IST, TNN
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PUNE: Scientists and politicians in the country need to work in sync with each other to take decisive steps towards fighting global warming said
Shyam Saran, special envoy to the Prime Minister on climate change issues, here on Monday.
Saran was speaking on the first day of the two-day programme National workshop on climate change: Status and future plans' organised by the ministry of earth sciences, Government of India, at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM).
"There is no synergy in the scientific and the political system to help fight climate change. This puts India at a disadvantage during discussions on the topic at global levels," Saran said.
He also said that India had a large infrastructural network. For example, the defence has a vast set up in the Ladakh region. Now, they could collect the data related to the climatic changes there and share it with the meteorological department. In this way, the reach and purview of available data would increase. "Indian scientists have done a lot of good work. Their research via the government networks should be used to benefit the public," he said.
Principal scientific adviser to the Government of India, R Chidambaram said, "We must go for regional climate change models." He said that among the steps necessary to promote climate change activity, digitisation of data should be done and should be made available to people doing research on related topics.
Opening the programme, U R Rao, chairman of the governing council of IITM, Pune, said, "Carbon credit is not the right solution to the problem of global warming. Recession has affected the carbon credit concept as the carbon credit rates have decreased due to recession." Rao said that instead, an environment assistance fund should be raised. "This fund could be generated from taxing carbon emitting industries. The funds would then be utilised to help developing countries deal with climate change and other related problems," he said. K Krishna Kumar of the IITM gave an overview of the impacts of climate change on India's monsoon activity through a presentation during the programme National workshop on climate change: Status and future plans'. Accessing the impact of global warming on the rainfall in India, he said the number of days that it would actually rain in the country is likely to decrease.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pune/Scientists-politicians-should-come-together-on-climate-change-Expert/articleshow/4549082.cms
Poorest countries unprepared for impacts of climate change
18 May 2009, 0758 hrs IST, IANS
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LONDON: The world's poorest nations are unprepared for the strain climate change will put on their public health systems, according to studies by
the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and its partners.
The findings came ahead of a major summit of health ministers from Commonwealth nations in Geneva that began Sunday. They show that in the most vulnerable countries very little has been done to assess or address the threats climate change poses to health, said Mike Shanahan, spokesman of the London-based IIED.
Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in IIED's climate change group, said: "This in part reflects a failure of wealthy nations to meet promises to help the poorer nations adapt to climate change".
The studies found that health systems in many of the least developed countries are already stretched to breaking point dealing with immediate concerns such as malariaand other infectious diseases.
There has been minimal research into how climate change will affect health and what can be done to reduce the threat, leaving hundreds of millions of people uninformed about the dangers.
A study in Zambia showed that floods and droughts can increase disease levels in some areas by as much as 400 percent. Dysentery appears to increase with drought, while pneumonia and malaria increase with rainfall.
"Zambia is vulnerable to droughts, floods, extreme heat and shifts in rainy season length," said George Kasali of Energy and Environmental Concerns for Zambia, who carried out the study in the country.
"Almost all of these climate hazards will have a negative effect on health. Despite the increased frequency of these hazards in the last decade, Zambia has not yet developed any climate-informed policies for the health sector."
"There is very little awareness of the potential impact of climate change on humanhealth within health sectors in the least developed countries," said Hannah Reid, a senior researcher in IIED's climate change group.
"There have been very few assessments of how climate change will affect food security, access to water, flood risks and diseases such as malaria."
Huq said rich countries must provide funds to help poorer nations adapt to climate change. "Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, rich countries promised back in 2001 to support poor countries in their efforts to adapt.
Since then 39 of the 49 least developed countries have assessed their adaptation needs. Many identified health issues that they will need to adapt to as climate change takes hold. What's missing is the money that was promised to help them do this.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Developmental-Issues/Poorest-countries-unprepared-for-impacts-of-climate-change/articleshow/4545064.cms
Ranchi city of India is facing acute water crisis.
Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi
May 18, 2009
Inhabitants of Ranchi city of Jharkhand state of India are facing acute water crisis. Most of the dug wells and deep wells and the corporation taps of this populated area have run dry forcing people to consume polluted surface water. Extensive deforestation, urbanization and industrilisation has led to uneven spread of rainfall, on which the water supply from the dams to the city area is depended. Even the ground water table has been affected due to uneven rainfall. From last few years rainfall due to western disturbances during winter season has shown decline trend. This rainfall earlier used to recharge groundwater which helped to maintain water table in peak summer season.
This summer season most of the ponds and small rivulets flowing through the city has dried up due to unbearable hot temperature. Earlier Ranchi was known for its cool climate even in the summer season. Temperature rarely goes up to 41 degree centigrade. But now it is very common. It is a fact that before 1990s whenever temperature rose to 35 degree centigrade during day time, Ranchi plateau used to get evening rainfall which helped to recharge the ground water table as well as surface water table. But now this phenomenon has stopped. Now continuous dry season last for more than six months. From last few years the temperature is showing increasing trend.
The main reasons for this water scarcity are as follows:
Dams: There are three major dams (Kanke, Rukka and Hatia) in Ranchi city which is now filled with sediments affecting water table. Due to these sedimentations the storage capacity of all the three dams have decreased many fold. From the year of their constructions silts have never been removed which has not only depleted the water table but also made dame water contaminated.
Topography: General elevation of Ranchi city is 600 m. above the mean sea level and has a flat to gently undulating topography with occasional ridges. The Ranchi plateau gradually slopes down towards south east into the hilly and undulating region of Singhbhum. Due to this uneven topography the rain water are lost through surface runoff resulting in less water percolation below the surface. The thin soil layer of Ranchi plateau which is becoming more thin due to weathering is gradually loosing its water retaining capacity.
Geology and Urbanisation: The process of urbanization and industrilisation from last 20 years has caused changes in the water table as a result of decreased recharge and increased withdrawal. Many of the small ponds which were main source of water in the surrounding areas are now filled for different construction purpose affecting the water table. Lots of DEEP- BORING in the Ranchi city has also forced the water table to move down as well as Ranchi plateau consists of metamorphic rocks which are relatively impermeable and hence serve as poor aquifers. They bear groundwater only in their weathered top portion which rarely exceeds 10 meters.
Rainfall factor: Though Ranchi receives sufficient amount of rainfall (1000mm to 1200 mm every year) but it is not an accurate indicator of groundwater level changes. Recharge is the governing factor (assuming annual withdrawals are constant); it depends on rainfall intensity and distribution and amount of surface runoff. As Ranchi is the plateau area waste of rainwater in the form of surface runoff varies from 35% to 40%. So recharging is not so good.
Many houses have been built over the recharge area which are the major source of water to unconfined aquifer below, because an unconfined aquifer is one in which a water table varies, depending on areas of recharge and discharge and pumping from the wells.
Among the natural drinking water sources are ponds and lakes that too has their life span, is being threatened by early Eutrophication due to sedimentation, which hampers bottom discharge processes. Pollution growth of Algal bloom, weeds in the remaining ponds of Ranchi has made water unfit for domestic use imparting fowl smell.
The state of Jharkhand, although claims to be a store house of minerals in India, is not so rich in water resources. Most of the areas are occupied by the hard rock, which is in general protracted drought prone areas.
Hard rock which occupies major portion of the Jharkhand plateaus are devoid of primary porosity and occurrence and movement of groundwater is controlled by the joints, fractures and fissures present in them.
The need of the day is to conserve every drop of water and recharge the depleted aquifers. Mere slogan shouting will not carry us far. The time is now ripe for action with the involvement of the people who are beneficiaries.
Half- hearted attempts are being made at rainwater harvesting in Ranchi city and with much publicity given in the media. The scheme can benefit thousands of acres of arid lands, if small ponds are excavated at vantage points or small check dams are build in at particular intervals in the different rivulets to conserve soil moisture.
Remedies:
1. Identification of the recharge area or catchment areas in and around Ranchi city to ensure no further construction on those lands.
2. Construction of artificial water reservoirs in suitable area in and around Ranchi to collect the rain waters.
3. Cleaning of ponds, lakes, rivulets and dams periodically to rejuvenate their capacity of storage of water.
4. Providing proper consultancy to determine suitable areas for deep boring and hand pumps.
5. To ensure regular safe drinking water supply from the Municipal to stop reckless deep boring, because in absence of water supply people are forced go for alternative source of drinking water.
6. Water conservation measures from domestic level.
7. Metering and pricing of water.
8. Region wise, in-depth study of the water balance.
9. Further planning of plantation and aforestation to ensure regularity of water cycle.
10. Fostering an awareness of water as a scare resource and its conservation as an important principle-through NGOs.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/102879
Top Stories
"Third World War over water looming"
Chandigarh (IANS): Green warrior Sunderlal Bahuguna, who has spent his life working for sustainable development, especially in the Himalayas, and pioneered the Chipko movement in the 1970s to save trees, thinks a third world war over water will be inevitable if governments do not wake up now.
Padma Vibhushan award winner Bahuguna told IANS in an interview here: "Nations all across the world are facing a water crisis that is deepening with the passing of each day. This is because of drastic changes that our ecology has undergone in the past few decades.
"There is untimely rainfall, scorching summers, unbearable winters, rampant droughts and floods. Everything has become so unpredictable and ironically it is all due to the unmindful activities of the most intelligent species on the earth, human beings."
Bahuguna, winner of the 'Asian Nobel Prize', the Magsaysay award, was sure that "the situation demands immediate notice and remedial measures from our governments and policymakers. Otherwise, mankind has to face the wrath of an inevitable third world war on the issue of water."
He said that the first and second world wars were the outcome of "intense gluttony of western countries to attain power and monopoly over the world's resources. These wars had destroyed many nations and the present world cannot withstand the rage of any more such warfare".
Bahuguna was here recently to take part in a convention of peace and environment clubs. He reminisced about the start of the Chipko movement in the Himalayas, when the locals protected trees by hugging (chipko) them when government-backed contractors arrived to cut them down.
"I also met former prime minister Indira Gandhi during the Chipko movement, who expressed firm belief in my ideology and announced a ban on the felling of trees. She had a great eco-sense that is missing in present-day politicians," said Bahuguna.
"There were some chief ministers of that time who were opposing this move but she threatened to stop their national grants if they did not comply."
Bahuguna said: "I do not want any award or recognition but I want more and more people to adopt my path. I had refused to accept the Padam Shri award in 1981, as I was very distressed with the government's approach of blindly cutting trees all over the country."
For him, the "heartrending truth of present day is that the economy has clearly outweighed ecology. Everybody perceives trees as a sole source of timber but they have forgotten that the integral purpose of trees is to provide oxygen, soil and water and furthermore to clean the environment by absorbing carbon dioxide."
Bahuguna is equally famous for his opposition to the Tehri dam on the Bhagirathi river, one of the main tributaries of the Ganga. It is one of the world's largest and most controversial hydroelectric projects.
"They did not listen to anyone and forcibly ousted thousands of families," Bahuguna told IANS, referring to the displacement of people from Tehri town in Uttarakhand, about 300 km from New Delhi. "This dam has ruined the homes and lands of around 100,000 people. But I am not dejected and my fight is still on against this dam and any such project in any part of the world."
With a height of 260 metres (855 feet), the Tehri dam is the fifth tallest in the world. Bahuguna said: "Dams are no solution to increasing water woes. We build huge dams and interfere in the natural flow of water by diverting its path. It has been scientifically proven that such activities take away the life of water and this stored water is called dead water."
"Normally governments of any nation always look for immediate solutions and in the whole process ignore future consequences. I appeal to the government of India to formulate a comprehensive 'Himalaya programme' that will act as a replica for other nations to preserve trees and water resources."
Bahuguna is a staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence. "At the age of 13, I met Gandhiji's follower Sridev Suman who influenced my life very much. He taught me the principles of Gandhiji. Impressed by him I decided to contribute to Gandhiji's movement.
"I propagated Gandhiji's thoughts among the people of my town. I had got a chance to meet Gandhiji on Jan 29 (1948), just one day before his assassination. He patted my back for my work and motivated me to continue it. He said that I had taken his principles of non-violence to the great heights of the Himalayas," said Bahuguna.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200905190942.htm
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