The Dirty Story of Where we Get our Coal
Published by MAC on 2005-03-26
The Dirty Story of Where we Get our Coal
The Chronicle-Herald
Opinion, Saturday, March 26, 2005
Ralph Surette
NOVA SCOTIA POWER gets the best quality coal it can at the cheapest price on the international market. Always sensitive to the price of electricity and, increasingly, to pollution, Nova Scotians would blame it if it did any less.
But there's an underside to the story. NSP gets that coal from the El Cerrejon Norte coal mine in northern Colombia, a notoriously dirty piece of business in that unfortunate country where it's hard to tell which is worse: the army and its paramilitary killers, the armed narco-traffickers, the rebel insurgents or the foreign corporations backed by the World Bank.
El Cerrejon Norte, one of the world's largest open-pit mines - occupying an original area 50 kilometres long and eight wide, and expanding constantly - is a continuing horror story of forced relocations of indigenous people, human rights violations, environmental destruction and other assorted injustices that one human rights group calls "a perfect example of globalization gone horribly wrong."
The subject comes up because Francisco Ramirez, president of the National Coal Miners Union of Colombia, was in Halifax this week trying to make a point. The most remarkable thing about Ramirez, apart from his immense courage, is that he's still alive. A total of 74 unionists were killed in Colombia last year alone and Ramirez says he has dodged seven assassination attempts.
He wants NSP and anyone else with clout to pressure the multinationals and the Colombian government to respect human rights. Despite the reasonableness of this request, he doesn't appear to have received much of a hearing at NSP. What should we think, then, since our demand for coal is part of the problem?
First, here's more of the story. The mine began as a joint venture between the Colombian government and Exxon Corporation 25 years ago intended to supply cheap, high-quality coal to North America and Europe.
It bordered on and partly covered reservation land of the indigenous Wayuu people, whose way of life has been largely shattered.
In 2000, as a result of pressure to privatize from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Colombian government sold its half to an international consortium. In 2002, Exxon (now Exxon-Mobil) sold its half to the consortium as well - but not before the community of Tabaco (pop. 700) was bulldozed flat to expand the mine.
It was done so quickly and without notice that residents, pushed out by 500 soldiers and 200 police who accompanied the mine operator, didn't even have time to retrieve their personal effects. When the job was complete, the village's school and clinic were also razed and the cemetery desecrated. There was no compensation. Critics accused Exxon of doing this as part of the deal, before it bowed out.
If such corporate degeneracy, done in our name as First World consumers, shock us, what can we in fact do?
Here's one thing. In 2002, representatives of the Wayuu visited Salem, Mass., where the power plant imports coal from the mine. Salem city council promptly passed a resolution supporting their struggle, and the power plant manager called the El Cerrejon Norte operators telling them the town expected them to negotiate with the Wayuu and find a just settlement.
Since our electrical system in Nova Scotia (80 per cent coal) functions on these people's misery, don't we owe them as much? If we are indeed a moral people, why wouldn't our legislature pass a similar resolution and NSP similarly convey its expectation that justice be done?
The Wayuu representatives, in their U.S. tour, went on to the Exxon-Mobil shareholders' meeting where their story caused some embarrassment. International support has been growing. Meanwhile, the Colombian supreme court has ruled that the residents of Tabaco be compensated - although collecting has proved elusive.
Nevertheless, a half dozen communities beyond Tabaco that were expected to suffer the same fate by now - their names are Tamaquitos, Guamachito, Provincial, Roche, Patilla and Chancleta - haven't yet. Meanwhile, the company's publication, which I found on the Internet, is bragging about supporting a couple of medical clinics in the area. Maybe even they are having twinges of conscience. Can we do any less?
Ralph Surette is a veteran Nova Scotia journalist living in Yarmouth County.
Globalization gone horribly wrong
by Ralph Surette, The Chronical Herald
April 4, 2005
The mine began as a joint venture between the Colombian government and Exxon Corporation 25 years ago intended to supply cheap, high-quality coal to North America and Europe.
Nova Scotia Power gets the best quality coal it can at the cheapest price on the international market. Always sensitive to the price of electricity and, increasingly, to pollution, Nova Scotians would blame it if it did any less.
But there's an underside to the story. NSP gets that coal from the El Cerrejon Norte coal mine in northern Colombia, a notoriously dirty piece of business in that unfortunate country where it's hard to tell which is worse: the army and its paramilitary killers, the armed narco-traffickers, the rebel insurgents or the foreign corporations backed by the World Bank.
El Cerrejon Norte, one of the world's largest open-pit mines - occupying an original area 50 kilometres long and eight wide, and expanding constantly - is a continuing horror story of forced relocations of indigenous people, human rights violations, environmental destruction and other assorted injustices that one human rights group calls "a perfect example of globalization gone horribly wrong."
The subject comes up because Francisco Ramirez, president of the National Coal Miners Union of Colombia, was in Halifax last week trying to make a point. The most remarkable thing about Ramirez, apart from his immense courage, is that he's still alive. A total of 74 unionists were killed in Colombia last year alone and Ramirez says he has dodged seven assassination attempts.
He wants NSP and anyone else with clout to pressure the multinationals and the Colombian government to respect human rights. Despite the reasonableness of this request, he doesn't appear to have received much of a hearing at NSP. What should we think, then, since our demand for coal is part of the problem?
First, here's more of the story. The mine began as a joint venture between the Colombian government and Exxon Corporation 25 years ago intended to supply cheap, high-quality coal to North America and Europe.
It bordered on and partly covered reservation land of the indigenous Wayuu people, whose way of life has been largely shattered.
In 2000, as a result of pressure to privatize from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Colombian government sold its half to an international consortium. In 2002, Exxon (now Exxon-Mobil) sold its half to the consortium as well - but not before the community of Tabaco (pop. 700) was bulldozed flat to expand the mine.
It was done so quickly and without notice that residents, pushed out by 500 soldiers and 200 police who accompanied the mine operator, didn't even have time to retrieve their personal effects. When the job was complete, the village's school and clinic were also razed and the cemetery desecrated. There was no compensation. Critics accused Exxon of doing this as part of the deal, before it bowed out.
If such corporate degeneracy, done in our name as First World consumers, shock us, what can we in fact do?
Here's one thing. In 2002, representatives of the Wayuu visited Salem, Mass., where the power plant imports coal from the mine. Salem city council promptly passed a resolution supporting their struggle, and the power plant manager called the El Cerrejon Norte operators telling them the town expected them to negotiate with the Wayuu and find a just settlement.
Since our electrical system in Nova Scotia (80 per cent coal) functions on these people's misery, don't we owe them as much? If we are indeed a moral people, why wouldn't our legislature pass a similar resolution and NSP similarly convey its expectation that justice be done?
The Wayuu representatives, in their U.S. tour, went on to the Exxon-Mobil shareholders' meeting where their story caused some embarrassment. International support has been growing. Meanwhile, the Colombian supreme court has ruled that the residents of Tabaco be compensated - although collecting has proved elusive.
Nevertheless, a half dozen communities beyond Tabaco that were expected to suffer the same fate by now - their names are Tamaquitos, Guamachito, Provincial, Roche, Patilla and Chancleta - haven't yet. Meanwhile, the company's publication, is bragging about supporting a couple of medical clinics in the area. Maybe even they are having twinges of conscience. Can we do any less?
Ralph Surette is a Nova Scotia journalist living in Yarmouth County.
Dirty coal stories on the homefront
By Ralph Surette, The Halifax Herald Limited
April 30, 2005
My March 26 column entitled "The dirty story of where we get our coal," about the human and environmental brutality surrounding the Colombian mine where Nova Scotia Power gets its coal, brought me some illuminating responses regarding some of our own dirty coal stories.
First, the Nova Scotia government has called for proposals for up to 10 strip mines in a 20-kilometre radius from Sydney, mostly along the shore from Boularderie on one side to past Port Morien on the other. The whole thing makes little sense economically, environmentally or in human terms; and the instinct that brought it about seems to be merely old-fashioned politics. Most of the people in the communities are implacably opposed, and a fierce opposition is rising.
Second, Nova Scotia is missing the boat on energy alternatives. Ontario has announced it is getting off coal completely; P.E.I. is moving ahead aggressively with wind energy; and an extensive wind farm is going up in the Gaspé, complete with local manufacturing to build and operate the turbines - a job creator as well as a provider of renewable energy. Although there are a few wind turbines coming on, Nova Scotia - despite its huge potential - is way behind in this game, say critics, because of energy policies too attached to coal and the offshore.
Not to mention that NSP's coal-fired generators, notably Lingan, are near the top of the list among Canada's worst polluters.
Coal, let us remember, has been at the heart of the most corrupt and lunk-headed aspects of the politics we have mostly, but not entirely, left behind in Nova Scotia. At the bottom of the political pit was the Westray mine which blew up in 1992, killing 26 miners. Lest we forget, an international mining expert told the Westray inquiry it was the worst, most dangerous mine he had ever seen, worse than in any dictator-ridden republic; and a Nova Scotia mine inspector testified it was his job to more or less not inspect.
My sensitive nostrils pick up a whiff of the old politics in this Cape Breton strip-mining business. Our old friend the Department of Natural Resources, guardian of reactionary economic thinking within the provincial government, usually seen straight-arming on the issue of forest clearcutting, has dumped these strip-mine plans on the communities. True to form, it has rigged up after-the-fact consultations with the communities, but is prepared to budge only on small details regarding environmental remediation.
Meanwhile, opponents are wild because a local operator who seems to be one of the government's favourites has been in court for environmental infractions, has been caught mining on someone else's land, and is accused by them of strong-arm tactics (including threatening expropriation) against vulnerable private owners of strip-mineable land.
The main arguments against (and they prevailed in 1984 when a Tory government knocked down strip-mining proposals for some of these areas) are acidic runoff into groundwater, lakes, streams and the ocean; and that strip mining negates government spending on tourism in Cape Breton. Jobs are negligible since strip mining is mostly done with machines. The arguments in favour, whatever they are, remain mysterious.
On the related issue of our energy policy, Neal Livingston, who has had a small hydro plant in Guysborough County for 20 years and is involved with some wind-power proposals, says that if Nova Scotia had been at all progressive, it would not only have more wind generation, "but also manufacturing capacity to go with it." Because of Nova Scotia's large potential for wind energy, there have been investors interested, "but they knock on the door and no one's home."
The private producers of alternate energy have problems with NSP - especially the fact that it's paying less for private power than neighbouring jurisdictions - and argue that it's lagging in the pursuit of alternate energy despite its claims to the contrary. However, says Livingston, the root of the problem is dysfunctional government policy. "They're stuck in a 20-year-old mindset." Pursuing strip mining in the middle of tourist country seems to be the proof of it.
Ralph Surette is a veteran Nova Scotia journalist living in Yarmouth County. The Halifax Herald Limited