Can you clean up a coal mine by mining more coal?

Faced with the prospect of Labour’s ban on new licences to dig coal, one company has proposed an absurd plan: to clean up a coal mine by mining more coal.

In January, ERI revealed a proposal to extract 468,000 tonnes of coal from two huge tips at Bedwas in South Wales. The scheme would pump more than a million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere and grab millions of pounds for ERI. But how could they hope to get planning permission when Labour has made a commitment that the government “will not grant new coal licences”?

We suspect ERI may try to get an “incidental coal agreement” – a provision that allows companies that find coal while building roads, houses or other developments to remove it safely. ERI insists that the scheme would “reclaim” the Bedwas site by “reprofiling” the site and “removing” all that coal. But there’s nothing incidental about removing half a million tonnes of coal – the vast profits ERI hopes to extract from the tips at Bedwas are the engine driving the entire project. So any incidental coal agreement could only be a sham.

With over 300 tips in South Wales alone, allowing the project to go ahead could blast open the door to massive carbon emissions from more mining projects across the UK. So we have teamed up with Coal Action Network, and have asked the environmental law expert Toby Fisher at Matrix Chambers for his advice. If we have to, we’re ready to take legal action, so that Bedwas doesn’t set a precedent for a new generation of ‘incidental’ coal mining.

When Coal Action Network made a freedom of information request, the Coal Authority was unequivocal. An incidental coal agreement can only be made when “any coal encountered is not mined for commercial purposes, it is being removed as a necessary part of the safe development of the site”. And Fisher’s detailed legal advice is equally clear; ERI can’t dodge the requirement for a coal licence by applying for an incidental coal agreement, because its whole plan is built on getting hold of the coal.

We’ve seen this movie before. When the company running the opencast mine at Ffos-y-Fran extracted £50m in profits – leaving a £60m black hole in the fund that was supposed to pay for the site to be restored – it said it should be allowed to carry on mining to pay for the restoration. But the company dug up 450,000 tonnes of illegal coal after planning permission expired, and the restoration is still going nowhere. The void left behind has filled up with water, creating a risk of contamination and a threat to public health.

The proposal for mining the Bedwas tips should be buried in a deep, dark hole. But if ERI does apply for planning permission, the local council and the Welsh government must stand up to corporate interests and block it. And we’re ready to take legal action to stop a new generation of mines – dressed up as restoration projects – from wreaking devastation on local communities and fuelling climate chaos.

The scars the coal industry has left behind take time and work to heal. And where abandoned mines are dangerous for local communities they need proper investment to restore thriving landscapes. But you can’t solve the problems coal mines have created by mining more coal.