website.net.nz

Got a great release from Save Happy Valley today.

I couldn’t find it online so here it is :

The Save Happy Valley Coalition today sent Solid Energy a bill for $12 million dollars on behalf of the people of New Zealand.

Fugitive methane emissions from coal mining – where gases leak from the coal seam itself – will now be covered by the Emissions Trading Scheme, thanks to changes announced on Monday by the Green Party.

“Don Elder tried to argue that these emissions are too small to worry about. But $12 million dollars is not a trivial amount of money and we’re very pleased that the New Zealand Government has recognised how inappropriate it is for us to continue to subsidise coal mining in this way,” says Save Happy Valley spokesperson Graham Jury

Figures based on the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Inventory show that Solid Energy’s 2006 coal production resulted in fugitive emissions of about 400,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. At $30 per tonne of

CO2 that comes to an annual bill of $12 million; which is likely to rise steeply as the Spring Creek underground mine comes into full production.

“Ultimately we’d like Solid Energy charged for all of the environmental messes they make: carbon emissions from exported coal, acid mine drainage, out-of-control mine fires, habitat destruction, deaths of kiwi and other native species. But it’s nice to see small steps like the ETS changes that are finally moving us in the right direction,” says Mr Jury.

“If Solid Energy were forced to pay for the environmental damage they do, there’s no way they’d be planning on mining a pristine area like Happy Valley.”

The Save Happy Valley Coalition is a network of concerned New Zealanders committed to non-violent opposition of Project Cypress at Happy Valley. SHVC is dedicated to protecting the biodiversity of the West Coast, and halting the expansion of the climate-change inducing New Zealand fossil fuel industry.