Environmental protection in open-pit coal mining in Quang Ninh Province

Dr. Anders Thuren
United Nations Development Programme

1. Description of the coal sector

Quang Ninh Province is located in north-eastern Viet Nam with a total area of about 600,000 ha, of which 280,000 ha is forest land and 51,000 ha is agricultural land. The total population in 1992 was 865,000 with a population density of about 140 persons per km2. About 40% of total population is concentrated in the cities of Cam Pha, Uong Bi and Hong Gai, which recently merged into Ha Long City.

Compared with the rest of the country, a relatively high proportion (about 12%) of the population in Quang Ninh is employed in the industrial sector. In the present economic structure of Quang Ninh, industry accounts for about 75% of the gross provincial product while agriculture accounts for the remaining 25%. Quang Ninh is rich in mineral resources, especially coal. Major industrial activities include ship construction, shipping, production of construction materials and seafood processing. Quang Ninh has a high potential for tourism development because of the natural scenery of Halong Bay which, in 1994, was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO (figure 3).

Figure 3. Overview of economic activities in the Halong Bay area

The coal industry is one of the most important economic sectors generating export income for Viet Nam. There are three coal companies operating in Quang Ninh Province, all of which belong to the Ministry of Industry (formerly Ministry of Energy). Some 65,000 people were employed by the coal industry in Quang Ninh in 1994, with many others employed in subsidiary and service industries related to coal. The coal industry is the largest employer in the province.

The majority of the coal reserves consists of anthracite and is located in Quang Ninh. Reserves in Viet Nam are estimated to be in excess of 2,300 million tons. Coal production in 1996 was approximately 10 million tons, 64% of which was produced from open-pit mines with the remainder coming from underground mines. The sulphur content in the coal is below 0.5% and the energy content is approximately 8,000 kcal/kg, making the coal very attractive for the export market.

In addition to the three major state-run coal companies, hundreds of small, private, unlicensed coal mining operations are reported to be working in Quang Ninh Province. The government issued a decision in July 1994 that these private operations were illegal and urged the local coal companies to co-operate in curtailing their activities. This decision was reinforced in July 1995 when the Prime Minister asked local authorities to clamp down on illegal mining activities which, among other things, threaten the environment.

Coal mining activities, whether licensed or not, are polluting air, water and land resources in Quang Ninh through discharging waste water, dust and overburden into the natural environment. Air pollution is caused primarily by coal dust, which results from blasting in the mines and transporting the coal from mines to coal processing plants to the port. Water pollution, in the form of acidified surface waters (pH 2-4) and river and stream sedimentation, is caused by runoff from overburden disposal sites. Polluted water has also affected Bai Chay Beach, a major tourist area. A number of water sources can no longer be used due to coal mining activities and there is currently a water shortage.

Open-pit and underground mining are also the main cause of deforestation and land degradation in Quang Ninh. In recent years, lake water levels have fallen while barren hill areas have expanded. During the rainy season, overburden is washed away thereby destroying about 200 ha of agricultural land per year. As a result, hundreds of families have had to move to other areas. Additionally, roads have been destroyed and the hydrology of many small streams and rivers has been altered (figure 4).

Figure 4. Problem areas in the Halong Bay region

Coal mining activities in Quang Ninh have created a conflict between the interests of the Ministry of Industry (formerly Ministry of Energy), which is interested in coal exploitation, and People's Committee of Quang Ninh Province, which is interested in developing the tourism industry in the province. The development of tourism is threatened by the environmental status quo. The Ha Long Bay region cannot hope to attract tourists on the scale anticipated by the Tourism Department of the Quang Ninh People's Committee unless pollution levels are reduced dramatically in the near future. Furthermore, ground water and air pollution is threatening the very existence of some communities. The consequences of allowing the present situation to continue are quite serious for Quang Ninh Province.

2. Problems to be Addressed: Current Situation

Most of the existing conflicts between the mining industry and the tourism sector in Quang Ninh Province could be resolved through strict compliance of the mining industry to environmental regulations. The primary problem to be addressed by the project is, therefore, the weak compliance of the mining sector to the Law for Environmental Protection and other mining regulations related to the environment. This weak compliance can be traced to several interrelated factors:

Institutional Framework

The six main economic activities in Quang Ninh province (coal mining, tourism, transportation, agriculture, fisheries, oil import/export) are regulated and managed by fourteen central government agencies. The central government role is complemented by different departments of the Quang Ninh PPC. Central and provincial government agencies are often required to respond to different priorities and no convenient mechanism exists to resolve potential conflicts between different economic sectors.

While the administration of the coal mining sector was improved through restricting the licensing authority to MOHI and creating VINACOAL in 1994, clear lines of authority for environmental management and administration have yet to be established. For example, responsibility for inspection is divided between MOI (specifically, former departments within MOHI and MOE) and MOSTE. Departments within the old MOHI, through its local offices affiliated with the provincial Industry Department, conduct inspections solely to ensure that the conditions attached to coal licenses are being met. Departments within the old MOE send inspection teams from Hanoi to investigate operating standards in accordance with regulations. MOSTE, through the provincial DOSTE, has responsibility for carrying out inspections to ensure compliance with environmental standards. As a result, the mining industry is subject to different waves of inspections, often with incompatible requirements.

Regulations

The current environmental standards governing open-pit coal mining and related activities in Quang Ninh are not sufficiently clear. The language, style and approach used are often vague. Operators complain that it is difficult to determine whether or not they are in compliance with the rules. No coal company has yet complied with the requirement of the present law to file an environmental impact assessment relating to its activities. This is due, they claim, not only to their lack of capacity but also to the less than specific nature of the requirement itself.

Enforcement Capacity

The absence of directly applicable regulations is compounded by a very weak environmental enforcement capacity. The provincial DOSTE lacks the capacity to monitor compliance with the Law on Environmental Protection and its regulations. None of the DOSTE staff member has been trained in environmental inspection and no equipment is available to monitor pollution levels and document breaches of the LEP.

Research and Monitoring

The extent of adverse environmental impacts resulting from open-pit mining has yet to be assessed with complete accuracy. Environmental monitoring is not undertaken comprehensively. While there is general agreement that a serious environmental problem exists, the essential knowledge base required for dealing with the problem has yet to be assembled.

Technology

Part of the difficulty flows from the fact that much of the equipment in use by the coal industry in Quang Ninh is antiquated or was donated by countries which do not themselves enforce strict environmental standards. With modernisation of plant and equipment, changes are occurring. However, cleaner production techniques are not being applied for dust prevention, land reclamation and waste water treatment. Several of the required changes can be implemented relatively easily: for example, ensuring that dust does not spill from the thousands of vehicles being used to transport coal and overburden, or ensuring that filthy waste water is not discharged into the drinking water of a village.

Awareness

It is accepted that current pollution levels being generated by the Quang Ninh open-pit coal mining industry threaten other uses of land, coastal and marine areas, water resources, habitations and the general quality of life. However, the environmental ethic of the industry is weak; the current levels of pollution are tolerated all too readily, even complacently. Close to 90% of the Cam Pha population derives its income from the coal industry. Thus, in the absence of economic alternatives, little pressure is exerted on the mining industry by local communities.

Although there is much awareness of the effects of pollution, there is less understanding that abatement may, in some instances, be relatively simple. Awareness of the need for precautions and pollution reduction procedures is generally low. This has much to do with tradition and a feeling that there are few alternatives to the status quo. This can be a powerful mixture and, unless corrected, can negate progress made in the areas noted above.

Financial

The need for technological innovation is beyond dispute, but the issue of financing has been raised as a barrier -- sometimes the most obvious one -- to progress. As an example, IRMT is aware of the environmental problems caused by current practices but reported to lack the means to conduct research on alternative, environmentally-friendly technologies or to develop appropriate operating standards. It has been proposed to establish a levy on coal produced under VINACOAL to finance mining pollution control initiatives. However, the exact modus operandi of this Environmental Fund is still under consideration and, as of June 1995, no project had been supported by the fund.

3. Project Strategy

Traditionally, there has been a heavy reliance on the regulatory approach to environmental protection. The non-compliance to the LEP by the mining sector in Quang Ninh results from several intimately linked factors. Merely strengthening the regulatory requirements would have little or no effect on the situation. The proposed project strategy is to strengthen compliance to the LEP through a combination of mutually reinforcing regulatory, self-regulatory, economic and technological measures.

Self-regulation is a critical step in the successful modernisation of an industry. In this connection, particular attention will be paid to self-regulatory measures to encourage voluntary compliance by the mining industry to environmental goals, which have been clearly defined and enacted, into law. A technical working group, including representatives from central and provincial authorities and from the mining industry, will be established to jointly design new operating standards. Several awareness activities targeting both the industry and the general public will be carried out. One of the major objectives of the project is to develop a "production contract" between the mining industry and regulatory authorities. The industry causes environmental damage in many diverse ways, but the types of pollution generated are narrow in range. This fact should greatly facilitate the integrated approach to environmental management proposed in the project.

4. Project Objectives and Outputs

The overall development objective: of this project is to reduce the negative environmental impact of open-pit coal mining in Quang Ninh Province. This will be accomplished by promoting the voluntary compliance of coal companies and related services to environmental regulations through developing and testing a comprehensive framework for environmental management in Quang Ninh.

The first objective is to produce a strategy for environmentally-friendly open-pit coal mining and appropriate operating standards to implement the strategy developed in close co-operation by government and industry. The outputs are that VINACOAL and the Institute of Mining Science and Technology will have prepared a reliable report on ground, water, air, coastal and marine pollution resulting from open-pit coal mining operations in Quang Ninh Province. The report will include a strategy for pollution reduction that considers appropriate operating standards, environmental technologies, monitoring and enforcement. And that through a government-industry working group, new operating standards will be formulated for open-pit coal mining and related activities.

The second objective is to increase the voluntary compliance of companies in the coal mining sector to the Law on Environment and the Law on Mining through introducing environmentally-friendly mining technologies and practices, developing local environmental legislation, and enhancing the local capacity for environmental monitoring and enforcement.

The outputs are that VINACOAL and the coal mining companies will be able to respond to the environmental problems caused by open-pit coal mining in Quang Ninh with new technologies for environmental protection and clean-up. And that the Government, industry and civil society will be able to better monitor and assess the environmental performance of coal mining companies and to encourage polluters to modify their behaviour through a variety of means.

Achieved so far is a report on the Environmental Management in Open-Pit Coal Mining in Quang Ninh Province:

5. Executive Summary

While existing data is not sufficient to quantify the damage and consequences, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that coal mining activities are creating serious environmental degradation which will have major impacts on the environment, population and economic development of Quang Ninh. Among the major problems are:

• Lowering of the ground water level and water catchment capacity affecting and contaminating provincial drinking water supply;
• Major changes to the natural water streams and river patterns due to erosion of waste dumps causing major flooding in monsoon season;
• Uncontrolled discharges of mine wastes and coal reject causing irreversible changes and contamination of the coastal line and water;
• Significant deterioration of the air quality throughout the Hon Gai-Cam Pha area due to transportation, coal handling and wind erosion of waste dumps and concentration of mining activities affecting human health and causing deterioration of buildings and machinery.

Other problems include threats to human life and residential areas through instability of waste dumps, wastage of valuable land space and deterioration of general landscape. The above impacts are the results of decades of mining with very little regard to environmental protection. The causes of these environmental problems are complex and interrelated consisting of technical, financial, legal, institutional and human resources issues. At the mine-site level, a lack of environmental management and planning, inadequate mine equipment and methods, and insufficient application of pollution prevention and control facilities are the main contributing factors.

The current environmental law, decrees and VinaCoalís Technical regulations are not always clear or sufficient in details for the mines to develop compliance measures. Current compliance mechanism by legal enforcement is not effective. The mines can not comply without a realistic time schedule. The current level of enforcement by government agencies is only superficial. There is an acute lack of technical expertise, equipment and staff, both at the mine site and at the environmental authority, due to financial and technical resources to carry out their obligation and mandate.

A lack of money for investments in environmental protection and remediation is a main barrier to environmental improvement. Vinacoalís revenues are constrained by central government policy and would not be able to pay for significant environmental remedial initiatives using its own resources. There is a lack of appropriate institutions to consistently resolve the conflicting environmental and economic goals of Quang Ninh. An inter-sectoral approach is required rather than the current fragmented approach.

Achieving the required improvements and effectiveness in environmental performance requires resolution to all the causes above.

The following recommendations will ensure that the required environmental management systems get integrated into the grassroots, mine level operations. Only in this way will environmental performance be improved

Technical

• Conducting proper EIA studies of existing mines and operations as benchmark;
• Identify preventable and non-preventable impacts and related mining activities to prioritise pollution management and reduction initiatives;
• Prepare phase-out plans for pollution making mining methods, processes and equipment;
• Prepare plans for capital equipment acquisition, human resource development and financing mechanisms to improve environmental performance and to remediate existing problems.

Financial

• Identify and evaluate options for raising the money to pay for the required environmental initiatives. Revenue sources beyond just VINACOAL should be considered.

Human Resources

• Technical training to mine staff and enforcement agencies;
• Environmental disaster training;
• Public awareness training Legal and Policy;
• Identify existing laws, decrees, guidelines etc. that require important clarification;
• Identify the issues that require new standards, regulations, procedures, guidelines etc. to improve environmental performance and determine appropriate legal instruments and responsible agencies;
• Set realistic compliance schedules for the coal mines. These schedules will probably be phased, with the goal of eventually coming into compliance with international environmental norms and standards;
• Design and implement compliance enhancement measures to achieve the phased compliance schedules.

Institutional

• Central government take the lead in establishing an organisation that can resolve the conflicting environmental and economic goals of Quang Ninh;
• Determine whether overlapping responsibilities among provincial and central agencies contribute to reducing the environmental performance of the mining industry;
• Strengthen the specialised environmental agency at the local level, such as DOSTE of Quang Ninh to co-ordinate the activities related to environmental protection in different sectors and keep balance of interest among institutions concerned.

References

First Workshop on EIA proceedings