1. MAIN ENVIRONMENTAL&SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN CHINA’S COALMINE CONSTRUCTION AND THE COUNTERMEASURES Haiqing Geng Appraisal Center for Environment & Engineering, SEPA, Beijing, China

2. Content  New characteristics of coal exploitation  The main environmental and social impacts  Problems in management field  Countermeasures

3. China’s recoverable reserve of coal is 114.5 billion tons,— 20.75% of the gross in the world, but crude oil and natural gas are only 1.50% and 1.12% of the world respectively. China’s coal reserve

4. Production and Consumption  2005 Production:2.20 billion tons 76.4% of the total consumption:2.17 billion tons 68.9% of the total

5. 1 New characteristics of the coal exploitation sector in recent years

6. 1 The amount of proposed projects increases fast  1998-2002 ： no large coalmine constructed due to the Southeast Asian financial crisis  2003 ： new coalmine construction upsurge began, 144 environmental impact reports submitted to ACEE ， the investment exceeded the past 50 years Totally 248 billion RMB  2007: the investment begin to fade away

7. 2 The distribution is regular 129 proposed projects distributed in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Xinjiang, Guizhou, Ningxia, Anhui, Shandong and Henan. the capacity reached 0.66 billion tons, 93.4% of the total.

8. 3 integrated with correlative industries Planned economy: coalmine——Ministry of Coal Industry electric power——Ministry of Power Industry chemical industry——Ministry of Chemical Industry Market economy: Department and regional monopoly was broken Coal exploitation, electric power and coal chemical industries are integrated both on the enterprises and regional level Many traditional coal mining groups expand toward electric power and coal chemical field

9. 2 The main environmental and social impacts

10. Subsiding area :103 km 2 /a ， totally 5,150 km 2 Excavating area by 14 opencast mines: 700km 2 Land occupation by coal slack : 9.87 hm 2 per coalmine, totally 14 km 2 Impact: water and soil loss, desertification,the loss of biodiversity, the loss of farmland 1 The ecological impact

11. 2 Water resource pressure Distribution of coal resource and water resource is reversed. 98 coal mines are with in 100 km from the main rivers. 69 coal mines concentrated in Yellow Drainage basin. Water consumption Electric power: 1000kw·h ↔3.63 tons Coal chemical industry: 1 ton product ↔ 10 tons.

12. 3 Migrating problem indexPanyiPansanPansi EastDingjiGubei Recoverable reserve (Mt)143711813451280674 Farmland influenced （ ha ） 41133738152474011676 Farmland loss （ ha ） 2877240683357361518 Villages influenced6066259450 Villages migrated5156257746 Population migrated2403120156114124200023581 some coal mines’ subsiding impact in Huainan Mining Group Once the depth of subsidence exceeds that of groundwater, the subsiding land will be turned into water area forever and the ecological framework will be changed.

13. 4 The waste influence Actuality: Solid waste: more than 1,500 coal slack hills (only state- owned coalmines), accumulating quantity reached 3.85 billion tons. The reusing level is only 42%. Waste water: 4.5 billion tons discharged per year. The reusing proportion is only 48.95%. Coal-bed gas: 14 billion cubic meters was discharged every year, only 24.4% is used from the quantity pumped out.

14. 3 Problems in management field

15. 1 The SEA lags behind the practical need Environmental Impact Assessment Law was issued in 2003, including plans and projects. But the EIA towards coal district plan haven’t developed universally. Obstacles: negligence of the government lack of the money conflict of the ministerial benefit

16. 2 The management policy isn’t clear Environment policies seldom consider the regional differences Policy of eco-environmental protection and the pollution prevention: reusing level of waste water for large coalmines should be at least 65%, the reusing proportion of coal slack should be at least 55%, and the reclamation rate of the influenced land should reach 75% till 2010. It is not reasonable to set the same criteria.

17. 3 Migrating problem hasn’t aroused enough attention Coal exploitation Electric power industry Coal chemical industry Infrastructure construction Migration and ecological framework adjustment in Huainan mining district

18. 4 The ecological compensation mechanism is absent The environmental externality hasn’t been considered sufficiently. There is no uniform ecological compensation mechanism in the coal industry. Four key problems: compensation criteria compensation entity compensation way supervision mode

19. 4 Countermeasures

20. 1 Accelerating the implementation of SEA SEA Should focus on systematic ecological renovation reuse of the waste migration protection of sensitive objectives The EIA towards projects has been implemented universally, but the SEA upon plans of coal district has just been put into practice no more than 5 years.

21. 2 Compartmentalizing the environmental management units

22. The typical zones for environment management 1 、 Loess plateau hilly and gully zone 2 、 Plan mine-grain complex zone 3 、 Yunnan-Guizhou mountainous zone 4 、 North-west desert grassland zone 5 、 East Mongolian meadow grassland zone

23. Corresponding relationship between the arranged constructing coalmines and the five typical zones

24. 3 Arranging the migration comprehensively The migration offered an opportunity of promoting the urbanization level and adjusting the framework of economy and society. The nestle town in Huainan coal district

25. 4.4 Installing the ecological compensation mechanism Three types of compensation Enterprise to local Coal inflowing region to the out flowing region State to the historic remaining problem As the most important resource exploitation sector, coal industry should install the compensation mechanism in priority.