Five peo­ple from Reclaim the Pow­er and Earth First! stopped work at the UK’s largest open­cast coal mine, Ffos-y-fran near Merthyr Tyd­fil, South Wales for ten hours today. Three peo­ple locked to an exca­va­tor with a ban­ner say­ing ‘End Coal’. Two peo­ple locked to a key access road, pre­vent­ing coal leav­ing the coal mine to the rail­head. Every day this week a train has trans­port­ed 2200 tonnes to RWE npower’s Aberthaw near Bar­ry, South Wales.[1] Aberthaw is the UK’s dirt­i­est pow­er station[2]. Today is also the UK’s first work­ing day where no elec­tric­i­ty has been gen­er­at­ed from coal in the UK.

Miller Argent’s Ffos-y-fran open­cast coal mine is the largest in the UK. Recent­ly the Unit­ed Nations called for an inves­ti­ga­tion into can­cer and child­hood asth­ma inci­dences in the pop­u­la­tion near to the mine.[3] The pro­tes­tors are join­ing local peo­ples’ call for the full restora­tion of Ffos-y-fran now.

Alice who is dressed as a canary locked to an exca­va­tor said, “Today the UK hasn’t gen­er­at­ed any elec­tric­i­ty from coal. This shows that it is pos­si­ble to move away from destruc­tive fos­sil fuel gen­er­a­tion. Nei­ther coal nor gas can achieve the type of green­house-gas reduc­tions demand­ed by inter­na­tion­al bod­ies such as the IPCC.   The shift away from coal would not be pos­si­ble with­out decades of com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance and action from the move­ment for cli­mate jus­tice.  In tra­di­tion­al under­ground mines canaries were used to alert min­ers to air pol­lu­tion. Today we, as canaries are warn­ing that we need to take urgent action against coal to tack­le air pol­lu­tion and cli­mate change”

Alex, also locked on added, “RWE npow­er talk of swap­ping to import­ed coal, but while the con­di­tions sur­round­ing Ffos-y-fran mine are unac­cept­able, the sit­u­a­tion for peo­ple liv­ing close to the coal mines in Rus­sia and Colom­bia, where most of the UK’s pow­er sta­tion coal comes from, are com­plete­ly unbear­able. It is long past time Ffos-y-fran was restored and absolute­ly time that Aberthaw was shut down.”

In 2015 38% of coal import­ed to the UK came from Rus­sia and 29% came from Colombia.[4] In these coun­tries the sit­u­a­tions sur­round­ing the open­cast coal mines amount to cul­tur­al geno­cide, with indige­nous and set­tled com­mu­ni­ties being forced from their land.[5] Miller Argent’s main cus­tomer for coal from Ffos-y-fran is Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion.

Sian Far­rar, a local res­i­dent of Rym­ney, a neigh­bour­ing vil­lage, said, “Those of us who live here see the black coal dust out­side every day – we are breath­ing this in con­stant­ly.. Add to that the more dan­ger­ous invis­i­ble pol­lu­tants from the pow­er sta­tions, and it’s clear this indus­try is tox­ic for local com­mu­ni­ties, in Wales and glob­al­ly. I stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with glob­al com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by UK coal-fired pow­er – RWE must stop sourc­ing coal from my back­yard, and must not sub­ject oth­er com­mu­ni­ties to these impacts.’

Chris who is cur­rent­ly locked to the access road said, “I am tak­ing this action today because RWE npow­er is burn­ing Welsh coal which when burnt releas­es high lev­els of CO2 con­tribut­ing to cli­mate change and nitro­gen oxides caus­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness. [6] The Euro­pean Union have ruled against the UK gov­ern­ment for allow­ing this NOXs pol­lu­tion to hap­pen, but no action has been tak­en. This is sim­ply not acceptable.”[7]

They con­tin­ued, “The solu­tion to the air pol­lu­tion We need to stop burn­ing fos­sil fuels. caused by burn­ing Welsh coal isn’t to import coal instead, as RWE npow­er sug­gest. Swap­ping air pol­lu­tion in the UK for coal dust which contaminates the water, land and air in Rus­sia, Colom­bia or even Aus­tralia, to keep Aberthaw going sim­ply can­not go ahead. [8]All coal mines need to be restored and the pow­er sta­tions must be shut down now.”

This action is part of a series of demon­stra­tions against Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion call­ing for it, and all oth­er UK coal pow­er sta­tions to close. [9]

Notes to Edi­tors

Con­tact press@reclaimthepower.org.uk or phone Sarah Squires on 07436629608

A Welsh speak­er is avail­able to speak as a local res­i­dent affect­ed by the mine.

Ref­er­ences

[1] Train infor­ma­tion gath­ered from real­time­trains. Eg: today a train is due to depart at 14.45 www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/ABTHPS/2017/04/21/0000–2359?stp=WVS&show=freight&order=wtt

[2] WWF, Sand­bag and oth­ers (Oct 2016) Lift­ing Europe’s Dark Cloud P26 In the first half of 2016 the plant emit­ted 11,003 tonnes of NOx, almost four times the 4,800 tonnes per­mit­ted under Euro­pean Union Indus­tri­al Emis­sions Direc­tive lim­its.

[3]Wales Online (09/03/17)UN expert calls for open­cast mine inves­ti­ga­tion after con­cerns about the impact on health

[4] Cal­cu­la­tions from HMRC coal import sta­tis­tics

[5] Mys­ki local civic organ­i­sa­tion “Revival of Kazas and the Shor peo­ple”, Inter­na­tion­al Work Group for Indige­nous Affairs (IWGIA) and Insti­tute for Ecol­o­gy and Action Anthro­pol­o­gy (INFOE),Dis­crim­i­na­tion against Shor com­mu­ni­ties in Mys­ki munic­i­pal dis­trict, Kemero­vo Oblast, Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion P10-17

[6] Friends of the Earth Cym­ru (Sep­tem­ber 2016) Air qual­i­ty and health impacts of Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion http://foe.cymru/sites/default/files/FOE_APS_report_final.pdf P2

[7] Judge­ment of the Court (7^th Cham­ber) 21 Sep­tem­ber 2016 (*) Fail­ure of a Mem­ber State to ful­fil oblig­a­tions — Direc­tive 2001/80/EC — Arti­cle 4(3) — Annex VI, Part A — Lim­i­ta­tion of emis­sions of cer­tain pol­lu­tants into the air from large com­bus­tion plants — Appli­ca­tion —Aberthaw Pow­er Sta­tion

[8] Luz Ángela Uri­ana Epi­ayu, of the Wayuu in Colom­bia said, “My son Moisés Daniel is sick with a high fever and a dry cough, and he is hav­ing trou­ble breath­ing… He is still only three years old. I live very close the Cer­re­jón coal mine… Because of the coal dust cre­at­ed by Cer­re­jón Moisés gets this dry cough… He breathes con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed air twen­ty-four hours a day.” Uri­ana Epi­ayu, LA (2017) RWE npow­er Colom­bian coal is killing our chil­dren! Close Aberthaw!Cer­re­jon is the largest Colom­bian coal mine it sup­plies Drax pow­er sta­tion and oth­er UK coal pow­er sta­tions. It is owned by Glen­core, Anglo- Amer­i­can and BHP Bil­li­ton, all list­ed on the Lon­don Stock Exchange.

[9] This action is the lat­est in a series of actions against Aberthaw pow­er sta­tion. These have includ­ed a block­ade of the pow­er sta­tions main entrance using two tripods for over 4 hours in Decem­ber. 150 peo­ple demand­ed “Shut Aberthaw: Green jobs now!” at a demon­stra­tion against the pow­er sta­tion on Sat­ur­day 28^th Jan­u­ary organ­ised by Reclaim the Pow­er, Coal Action Net­work and Unit­ed Valley’s Action Group and a demon­stra­tion at RWE Npower’s head­quar­ters in Swin­don ear­li­er in Jan­u­ary.