Focus

Mine closures carve out a cleaner future

By Li Jiabao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-24 09:35

Beijing is shutting the last of its small coalmines and saying farewell to a 1,000-year-old industry at the end of the month, according to the Beijing Administration of Work Safety.

"The closure of small coalmines with an annual output of less than 300,000 tons has already finished in the two districts of Fangshan and Mentougou," said a clerk with the Beijing Administration of Work Safety, who declined to reveal his name.

A miner walks past a hill of coal near a closed pit in Fangshan district. [Zou Hong/China Daily]

"It is an effort to weed out inefficient mines and a determination to build the capital into an international city," he told METRO.

Early in 2005, Beijing started a project to shut small coalmines in accordance with the transformation of the local economy and closed 335 small mines in the first year.

The following years saw a continuation of the closures and, finally, the municipal government wrapped up the initiative after closing 24 remaining small mines this year.

"The hill in Da'anshan town used to house more than 300 small coal pits but now all of them have been closed and the last one was gone on April 30," said Wang Xiyou, a former operator of a small pit in southwestern Beijing's Fangshan district.

The same situation happened to the small coal pits scattered in Mentougou district of western Beijing, the other heartland of the capital's coal mining industry.

The two coalfields, known as the western Beijing coal base, still have rich reserves that could be tapped for more than 100 years.

"All the small coalmines in Mentougou district have been closed except for a State-owned coal company," said a clerk surnamed Zhang with the district planning office.

"The action is not only for safety reasons but also is an effort to develop the mining area into an ecological conservation area."

He said the small mines made it difficult to manage the industry.

"Because of the poor planning of the small coalmines, it was hard to figure out which part is empty under the ground and thus the mining area can only afford low-density residential housing."

Some of the small coalmine entrances have been blasted to close them in case people try to return to the mines. And others that were unsuitable for blasting have had their entrances sealed in other ways.

On Tuesday, the small mines at Shijiaying, Fangshan district began to dismantle the high voltage cable .

"The mines could not be tapped anymore without equipments and electricity," Song Youfu was quoted as saying to Beijing Youth Daily.

The owners of the small coalmines are usually local people who obtain mining rights and certificates from local governments.