Solid Energy's Environmental Management Systems And
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Solid Energy’s environmental management systems and performance November 2006 Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Te Kaitiaki Taiao a Te Whare Paremata PO Box 10-241, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand www.pce.govt.nz Solid energy’S ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND PERFORMANCE 2 This report and other publications by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment are available on the Commissioner’s website: www.pce.govt.nz. Investigation team Michael Moodie Bruce Taylor Philippa Le Couteur Internal reviewers Helen Beaumont Doug Clover Deborah Mills External reviewers Dennis Crequer – Environment Waikato Duncan Laing – Simpson Grierson Acknowledgements The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and his investigation team would like to thank all those who assisted with the research and preparation of this report. Editing Write Group Limited Layout Kathryn Botherway Inside cover photograph Stockton mine, August 1998. Photo copyright Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited. GNS Science/ Photographer: Lloyd Homer Bibliographic reference Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. 2006. Solid Energy’s environmental management systems and performance. Wellington: Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. This document may be copied provided that the source is acknowledged. ISBN: Print version 1-877274-30-5 Electronic version 1-877274-31-3 PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT pce 3 Contents Preface ...........................................................................................................4 1 Introduction ........................................................................................5 1.1 Purpose of the report ................................................................5 1.2 The scoping process ..................................................................5 1.3 Authority for the scoping study .................................................6 1.4 What we have not investigated .................................................6 2 Solid Energy ........................................................................................7 2.1 Solid Energy’s current mining operations ...................................7 2.2 Environmental regulatory framework within which Solid Energy’s coal mines operate ......................................................9 2.3 Solid Energy and environmental sustainability ............................9 3 Results of the scoping study ............................................................11 3.1 Background ............................................................................11 3.2 Stockton mine .........................................................................12 4 Conclusions .......................................................................................20 Endnotes ......................................................................................................21 References ...................................................................................................23 Appendix A: Sites visited and people talked to by PCE staff during the scoping process ..........................................................................25 Appendix B: Information sheet for interviewees .....................................27 Appendix C: Solid Energy’s Environmental Management System and Structure ....................................................................................29 Appendix D: Water quality issues..............................................................33 Appendix E: Mine rehabilitation ................................................................36 Figures Figure 1: Solid Energy’s currently operating mines ............................................8 Tables Table 1: Solid Energy coal sales 2000–2005 ......................................................8 Table 2: Estimated mean flow and annual total metal, acid, sulphate and suspended solids loads on Stockton waterways ....................................15 Solid energy’S ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND PERFORMANCE 4 Preface Mining, first gold and then increasingly coal, has been an integral part of New Zealand’s development since the middle of the 19th century. For the first 50 years of the 20th century coal mining dominated the economy of the South Island’s West Coast. The President of the Institute of Civil Engineers in London described the region’s coal as “fully equal, if not superior, to the best description from any part of the world” (McKinnon, 1997). In terms of local employment and the wider economy, coal remains important to New Zealand today. Our coals are still recognised for their high quality and they command premium prices on world markets. However, there is now much great recognition of the environmental impacts of coal’s extraction and, on a global scale, of the CO2 released when it is used. It is the impacts of mining, particularly on the West Coast, that have led to this scoping study of the environmental performance of Solid Energy’s mining operations. Solid Energy is the largest mining company in New Zealand. As a state owned enterprise it has a particular responsibility to demonstrate leadership in environmental management in the mining sector. The company is forecasting that it will produce approximately 100 million tonnes of coal over the next 20 years – much of it from terrain and in local climates that are very challenging from an environmental management perspective. This challenge is recognised by Solid Energy – it has recently acknowledged that some of its mining activities have fallen well short of environmental best practice and it has made a public commitment to improve them. Over the last few years Solid Energy has introduced a company environmental policy and an associated Environmental Management System, site plans, and other procedures that acknowledge environmental management as a core business activity. However, because the various plans and procedures are being gradually implemented it is too early to assess how effective they are in improving environmental performance on all the company’s mining sites – particularly given the magnitude of mining impacts at sites such as the Stockton mine. This is Solid Energy’s largest opencast mine, and it produces the biggest environmental challenges in terms of water quality and site rehabilitation. My team and I conclude this scoping study by making a commitment to audit Solid Energy’s environmental management performance at the Stockton mine in 2008. We outline the areas our audit will focus on by way of ‘serving notice’ on the aspects we consider need substantive improvement in environmental performance. Dedicated commitment to, and investment in, the current Environmental Management System is a good platform for progress. We hope to be able to report positively on it achieving its full potential. Dr J Morgan Williams Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT pce 5 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of the report This report discusses the findings of a scoping study into Solid Energy New Zealand Limited’s (Solid Energy) environmental management systems and performance. The study was undertaken by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) in the second half of 2005 and first half of 2006. The purpose of the scoping study was to provide the Commissioner with sufficient information to determine whether Solid Energy’s environmental management systems and performance at any of Solid Energy’s mining operations, or any aspect of them, warrant a more detailed investigation by the PCE. The Commissioner initiated this work in response to a number of complaints from the public and as a result of independent PCE monitoring of media reports, which indicated that some of Solid Energy’s coal mining activities on the West Coast of the South Island had resulted in adverse environmental effects. People had expressed concern to us about whether these effects were being adequately managed. 1.2 The scoping process In the second half of 2005 and the first half of 2006 we visited some of Solid Energy’s mines and associated sites on the West Coast, and interviewed Solid Energy staff and a range of stakeholders (see Appendix A for details). We also visited Solid Energy’s operations in the Waikato and met with Environment Waikato and Waikato District Council to enable us to make some comparisons between Solid Energy’s West Coast operations and Waikato operations. In addition, we obtained documents and reports from Solid Energy about their environmental management policies and plans for several sites. We also examined published literature on studies of the impact of coal mining on the New Zealand environment and reviewed other documents provided to us by councils. Details of the material we received and analysed have been documented and may be used in a later investigation. As part of the scoping study we considered the environmental regulatory framework controlling coal mining. The PCE previously investigated this framework in 1992 in the Environmental management of coal mining.1 That study identified a number of issues with the environmental regulatory framework. Over the past three years, concerned citizens have approached the PCE about mining being carried out under mining licences and coal mining licences potentially having adverse environmental impacts. Solid energy’S ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AND PERFORMANCE 6 We consider that the adequacy of the environmental regulatory framework controlling