Who benefits from extracting coal from Bedwas spoil tips?
There are concerns that potential plans to extract coal from spoil tips in Bedwas will be detrimental for the environment and residents.
Hello and welcome to The Valleys Lead.
Today, we are taking you to Bedwas, where there are talks about extracting coal from spoil tips. There are major concerns being raised, and we talked with the chair of Friends of Sirhowy Country Park to find what they are. This is a story we plan to continue to cover so please contact laurencrosbymedlicott@gmail.com if you have more on this.
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The Valleys Briefing
(A little round-up of some stories in brief from our valleys.)
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South Wales Police are investigating a serious assault in Merthyr Tydfil. A woman has been taken to hospital after being found at a residential address in Merthyr Tydfil, and a man was later found dead at Pontsticill Reservoir. We will continue to watch this story.
Who benefits from extracting coal from Bedwas spoil tips?
A long-standing problem for Bedwas, a town in Caerphilly County Borough, has been spoil tips - large mounds of waste rock, soil, and debris removed during mining operations - at Bedwas Navigation Colliery.
Since mining operations ended in 1985, at least two Bedwas coal waste tips have been surveyed by the Welsh Government and been given category D status, meaning they are tips with the potential to impact public safety, and must be inspected by Caerphilly County Borough Council (CCBC) at least twice a year.
The Welsh Government has said the tips aren’t necessarily ‘unsafe’, but due to the height and make-up of them, there is a risk that run-off water could cause an incident below.
Years ago, it was announced that the company Energy Recovery Investments Limited (ERI) had made proposals to mine coal left in the two tips and then remediate - to make safe – the tips afterwards.
“They claim that by remediating the tips they will restore grassland which was lost when the tips were created and create new areas of grassland,” Norman Liversuch, Chair of Friends of Sirhowy Country Park, told The Valleys Lead. “They claim that this will benefit the natural environment and nature conservation. But in doing so they will be carrying out a major open cast mining operation, removing tip spoil down to bedrock, spoil which has been in place for many years and which nature is reclaiming.”
According to Liversuch, ERI claims that the tips are at a risk of catching fire so coal (left over in the spoil tips from previous mining) needs to be removed.
“There is no evidence to support these claims,” he said. “The only recorded instance of a tip fire took place in the 1970’s when the colliery was still operating and this was in a tip which is not part of ERI’s scheme.”
ERI’s plan? According to Liversuch, the spoil will first be washed to separate the coal.
“The washery location is on the mountain ridge top above the Sirhowy valley and the village of Cwmfelinfach,” he said.
The washery will operate from 6 am to 10 pm, said Liversuch. “There will be lights, noise, dust and possible runoff into streams feeding the river Sirhowy,” he said. “This will detrimentally affect the local population and wildlife in the river and surrounding woodland. This new tipping will destroy a wide range of habitats which would be very difficult, if not impossible to recreate.”
Animals would lose their homes and grazing patches, and the public won’t be able to access the grounds for walking, according to Liversuch.
“Since the closure of the collieries the environment has improved dramatically, so much so that otters were seen swimming and catching fish in the river Sirhowy and a country park has been created for everyone to enjoy,” he said. “ERI’s scheme would destroy this.”
There are concerns about contaminants in the spoil.
“In 2010 CCBC engaged consultants to prepare a scheme to remediate the tips,” Liversuch said. “The scheme highlighted the presence of contaminants in the spoil and recommended that any work should involve minimal disturbance of the spoil to prevent release of the contaminants into the local environment. The contaminants are still in the spoil and the scheme proposed by ERI will release them.”
Waste from washing the spoil will then be dumped on Mynydd y Grug, a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC), and lorries will transport the coal for processing on a forest track (much of which is unpaved) running through the Sirhowy Valley Country Park, which passes through a local nature reserve, bisects a Community Farm, and runs adjacent to the Covid Memorial Woodland.
Locals near this track are worried about the impact on their health from the increased dust created from lorries, and the disruption caused.
“The number of lorries going through our village will make even more exhaustion than there already is,” Geoff Arnold, 77, told The Valleys Lead. “That exhaustion is probably going to kill me.”
Geoff has COPD, a medical condition involving the constriction of airways, worsened by vehicle exhaust, coal dust and smoke.
And then the question remains of what happens with the extracted coal from the spoil tips. Will it stay within Wales, or be sent abroad?
