There are still 5,000 coal tips in the UK with 1,200 in Wales.

Last year: There was a report 2020/03/14 'The instability hidden in our hillsides: How safe are Wales' coal tips'
After the landslides of Storm Dennis, questions have revealed how hard it is to find information about the safety of Wales' 1,200 coal tips by Ruth Mosalski Political Editor www.walesonline.co.uk.

"In February, thousands of tonnes of rock and debris slide down the side of the valley from the Llanwonno tip in Tylorstown. One local councillor said an estimated 30,000 tonnes of debris was dislodged by prolonged rain, luckily just sliding onto an unoccupied ravine below.

"As a comparison, in the Aberfan disaster, 150,000 tonnes of coal waste collapsed onto the village. The collapse at Llanwonno was one of several landslides to happen in Rhondda Cynon Taf Council area during the torrential rain of Storm Dennis..."

The RCT Council mentioned told reporter "It has 253 sites and that 11 in the most at risk Category D that are deemed to be of direct/indirect risk to life and property with known history of movement or instability.

Sustaina-Bull.

And you religiously watch 'Sunrise' on Channel 7 every morning Bernard.

In 1999 I took a picture of a sign erected by Lihir Mining's environment department at the beach directly in front of the Alaia Sacred Rock of Lihir in Kapit Bay.

There was just enough room between it and the high water mark for the main road from the Londolavit Base Camp to the gold refinery across the bay. The sign read: 'Do Not Enter. Personnel are not permitted to enter this area at any time. This is a wild life reserve. Any unauthorised entry may result in dismissal or legal action'.

Since then the mining company has been dumping rock spoil into the bay thus drastically reducing the environmental plan’s allowed minimum distance from the shore line to the designated site for deep sea tailing disposal possibly half kilometre from the shore.

The company is thus in breach of the government’s laws.
A clear recent picture is at:
https://www.flagstaff.com.au/project/lihir-kapit-pfs-capital-cost-estimate/

In the mid-1990s my mates and I in our small local environmental NGO wrote quite a long submission asking major international NGOs to get involved pre-production.

We asked that a ring of sea water quality monitoring points be established around the Lihir island group; also on neighbouring Anir and Tanga islands as well as across on the mainland of New Ireland. Sadly not one even bothered to reply to our request.

I do not know if the PNG government's mining or conservation officers have access to the periodic sea quality testing that Lihir mine conducts but it may be that like the Porgera mine they are private.

I was amazed to learn that in Porgera's mine environmental plan it was agreed there would be no testing in quite a long stretch of the river that the miner designated as a 'Mixing Zone'.

In 1997 I was one of only a few NGO reps that attended the miners-fest conference in Madang and it was there I first heard the laughable term 'sustainable mining'.

I managed to get a question to the extractors' gathering on such a stupid idea. Possibly because of my having grown up with coal miner relatives and near the filthy black River Taff that took away the filthy runoff from the hundred or more mines that had used it as a free sewer.

Only after Maggie Thatcher's wholesale closure of mines was it eventually returned to once more having fish living in it.

A Mr Ryan became a millionaire out of that long clean-up as his machinery dredged the detritus of 200 years of mining from the river's banks and bed by turning the muck into black briquettes for space heating stoves.

Just two other comments.

The Wafi Golpu mine I read somewhere that a lot of the spoil from its mining will be re-interred in the holes dug underground.

I also think the current K92 mine in Kainantu also has no waste pipeline.

Thanks Duncan for your timely post.

My dear Bernard, sustainable mining indeed. Well spoken.

Queensland has been or rather was once well known as the land of the gerrymander and looks like it still is.

Fits in well with your Tammany Hall pork barrelling.

Bejases, begooooragh. You can't blame this all on the Irish.

And as for Clive Palmer, well he was once part of the Jo Show and his offsider, the one time minister for everything, Russel Hinze.

It ails not so well in the good ship of state of Queensland steaming along with the premier's hands firmly on the tiller.
Slainte Wm.
________

There is no evidence of gerrymandering or entrenched state corruption in Queensland - KJ

Phil, sesquipedalian, you can put it down to differentiation, perhaps.

Well, Phil/Bernard.

Yes Phil, I heard on the grapevine from a former PNG hand that the spill was caused by one of the radical unionised workers opening the wrong valve.

The Mirarr people have always called the mining area sickness country, as they call the proposed new mining area.

The continuation of mining in no way deterred the Mirarr from receiving their royalties, many millions, and good luck to them.

Now the Jaburu township has become a burden on Federal and the Northern Territory governments with the closing and full rehabilitation of the mine.

The township doesn't pay its way and will be heavily subsidised, including a new gas-fired power station which is presently under construction.

NB, the mine rehabilitation is being paid for by the Smiling Thieves of Threadneedle Street in the City of Old London Town.

Contempt of all other humans and creatures too, lies beneath the surface of the "its all mine" notions.

Raw sewage was dumped off shore at Bondi Beach several decades ago and became eponymous with the iconic Australian blues band The Bondi Cigars.