Key Coal Terminal Shut By Climate And Community Campaigners

Update: After a six hour block­ade, one man had been arrest­ed at the scene for assault and three women and a man had been arrest­ed for breach of the peace. They’ve been charged with caus­ing about £200,000 ‘dam­age’ to the coal ter­mi­nal oper­a­tion.

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At 6.30 this morn­ing ten cam­paign­ers, togeth­er with local res­i­dents, peace­ful­ly block­ad­ed Raven­struther coal load­ing ter­mi­nal in South Lanark­shire. Hav­ing stopped its reopen­ing after the week­end, they are cur­rent­ly pre­vent­ing coal being loaded and trans­port­ed. [1] Pro­test­ers plan to stay in place as long as pos­si­ble.

Two pro­test­ers are locked on top of the coal con­vey­or belt, hold­ing a large ban­ner with the words “No New Coal” high over the ter­mi­nal. Oth­ers are blockad­ing the front gate with their bod­ies, arm tubes and bike locks.

The action is aim­ing to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of Scot­tish Coal in the region. The pro­test­ers are act­ing to oppose the five open cast coal mines active in the area, and in resis­tance to the thir­teen new open cast coal mines due to open in Scot­land. [2] [3]

Bill Reid who is at the site said: “In the face of dan­ger­ous run­away cli­mate change, increas­ing our depen­dence on coal – the most pol­lut­ing of the fos­sil fuels – is sim­ply unac­cept­able. We urgent­ly need to switch to renew­able ener­gy and close exist­ing mines. We shouldn’t even be think­ing about new ones.”

The demon­stra­tion today is in sup­port of the Lanark­shire com­mu­ni­ties who are oppos­ing new open cast mines. [4] Anna Macken­zie, a local res­i­dent said: “We’re here today to send a clear mes­sage that we don’t want parts of Scot­land such as South Lanark­shire to become the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe, as they will be if per­mis­sion is grant­ed for all the new open cast coal mines cur­rent­ly being pro­posed. Direct action is not just the only avenue left open, it is also an effec­tive one, as demon­strat­ed by the occu­pa­tion of Main­shill Wood which has been pre­vent­ing an open cast mine from start­ing and fur­ther­ing high­light­ing the neg­a­tive health impact which open cast­ing has been hav­ing on the peo­ple of Dou­glas.” [5]

Anoth­er pro­test­er, Helen Forbes said: “Local author­i­ties, the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment and com­pa­nies like Scot­tish Coal and Scot­tish Pow­er are ignor­ing the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence on cli­mate change. We have to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for our cli­mate and our future, and stop the coal indus­try and its expan­sion. Today at Raven­struther we’re act­ing respon­si­bly”.

With Scotland’s CO2 emis­sions increas­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly, con­tin­u­ing the con­sump­tion of coal will make it impos­si­ble for Scot­land to meet its 80% tar­get reduc­tion in CO2 emis­sions by 2050. Jo Price said “The Scot­tish gov­ern­ment is pay­ing lip ser­vice to the dan­gers of cli­mate change. As long as they allow com­pa­nies like Scot­tish Coal to dig up our coun­try­side and burn the prod­uct we won’t meet the tar­gets.” [6]

It is esti­mat­ed that 6,380 tonnes of coal were stopped from being loaded, equiv­a­lent to 11,675,400 kg CO2 released into the atmos­phere.

The block­aders apol­o­gized to any work­ers affect­ed by today’s demon­stra­tion, but in rec­og­niz­ing the des­per­ate need to stop burn­ing coal sees no oth­er choice but to tar­get the com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for min­ing it.

ENDS ~ NOTES SEE BELOW
NOTES FOR EDITORS

[1] There is cur­rent­ly a coal freight train sit­ting in Raven­struther coal-rail ter­mi­nal, which this action is pre­vent­ing from being loaded. Five such trains leave Raven­struther every day.

[2] 3 open cast coal mines deliv­er coal to the Raven­struther coal-rail ter­mi­nal. The new mines pro­posed for Lanark­shire are like­ly to use it too (as is the case with Poniel open cast, which start­ed pro­duc­ing coal in
Sep­tem­ber).

[3] Raven­struther coal-rail ter­mi­nal deliv­ers coal to pow­er sta­tions through­out Eng­land includ­ing Drax (Drax Group plc.), Ruge­ley (Inter­na­tion­al Pow­er), and Iron­bridge (E.on).

[4] Dou­glas host­ed a Com­mu­ni­ty Health Pub­lic Meet­ing on 23rd Sep­tem­ber 2009, after a Com­mu­ni­ty Health Study of the heav­i­ly-mined Dou­glas­dale area revealed it as a trou­bling sig­nif­i­cant hotspot for res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es
and can­cer.

“Stud­ies per­formed in the Unit­ed States indi­cate high­er lung can­cer rates, and high­er mor­tal­i­ty rates for res­pi­ra­to­ry, heart, and kid­ney dis­eases in com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing in prox­im­i­ty to open-cast coal extrac­tion
oper­a­tions. ” (See Coal Health Study, below)

Dou­glas­dale Health Study 2009:

& (PDF):
http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Douglasdale_v4.pdf>

“Open­cast mines will lead to pub­lic health dis­as­ter, warns poi­son expert”
(The Her­ald, 26/09/09)
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/opencast-mines-will-lead-to-public-health-disaster-warns-poison-expert‑1.922198>

“Health should come before open­cast prof­it in Dou­glas” (Lanark Gazette,
1/10/09)
http://www.lanarkgazette.co.uk/news/Health-should-come-before-opencast.5696870.jp>

[5] Accord­ing to the World Health Organ­i­sa­tion (WHO), 160,000 peo­ple
already die each year as a direct result of glob­al warm­ing.
http://www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/World_Health_Day_2008_FactSheet2.pdf>

[6] For more on the case against coal min­ing in Lanark­shire, see Coal
Action Scot­land’s excel­lent brief­ing.

Today’s cam­paign­ers are NOT from the group Coal Action Scot­land.