Blog entry

The future is ash-grey for people in Turceni, Romania

People in the Submaidane-Turceni area in Romania live their lives in coal ash that still hasn’t been cleaned up after an accident that took place in December 2013 at an ash deposit belonging to the Oltenia Energy Complex in Turceni. They can’t seed their land, they know their water is not fit for drinking and they have problems with air pollution, as ash is blown by winds when it’s dry.

These are the complaints that representatives of the Oltenia Energy Complex could have heard at a public debate on Sunday – had they been there. Rather than learning first-hand about the problems that still persist and which measures still need to be taken to help the locals, the Oltenia Energy Complex chose to send a document instead that lists clean-up measures that were implemented, but which didn’t address people’s current issues.

Turceni

Turceni is the largest coal thermal power plant in Romania and it is part of a complex consisting of several coal power plants and lignite mining operations. Out of the seven units that were built at the Turceni power plant, 3 units will continue to operate in the near future. The power plant uses local lignite and it was the second most polluting industrial facility in Europe in 2009; since then, facilities were built to comply with sulphur oxides emission standards.

The accident

In December 2013, following damage at the Oltenia Energy Complex’s Valea Ceplea ash deposit, located a few kilometres from the Turceni power plant, an ash and water discharge flooded 15 hectares of agricultural lands and 10 households in the Submaidane area of the Turceni and Ionesti settlements in Gorj County, Romania.

Images taken in February still show the level of devastation of both houses and farm land:

The company was fined earlier this year by the Environmental Inspectorate for not having taken all measures to prevent the accident from taking place.

In March 2014, the energy complex had committed to take all clean-up measures by September 30th 2014, i.e. removing the ash from gardens and lands, restoring the local road, cleaning the water discharge channel that enabled the flooding, rehabilitation of houses and commissioning soil analyses.

Insufficient clean-up

At this time, much of the agricultural land is still under a thick, one-meter high layer of ash, and fertile soil hasn’t been brought to people’s gardens where they normally grow their vegetables. Their road used to be a gravel one, now it’s a muddy space that isn’t fit for use on rainy days. Moreover, water in people’s wells is not fit for drinking and they also complain about heavy air pollution on dry and windy days, when ash is blown from the flooded lands and from an ash deposit located next to the power plant.

These images taken in August show how much still needs to be done.

(This is the same car stuck in sludge as in the picture from February.)

This is a long story described in a few words. But words are never enough – just as much as the company’s lip-service commitment towards sustainable development and social responsibility is worthless if it does not translate into action. The Oltenia Energy Complexy must clean up its act and it has to do so urgently.

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Photos of the Submaidane area and the public debate are available at http://bit.ly/1tEnr2D and http://bit.ly/1pGIdqN respectively.

Romanian government is seeking financial support in China for time travel into a lignite past

Today, a four day visit of a high-level Romanian delegation to the People’s Republic of China is coming to an end. The visit includes a meeting with main representatives of Chinese companies and banks investing in Romania or seeking to do so, among others in coal power installations.

Chinese (and other new) investors have developed a big interest in Romania and the whole of south-east Europe, with coal power plants being among the popular investments. Since previous discussions with Romania this year have focused on large infrastructure projects and nuclear and coal power it is hard to deny that the Romanian government is trying to attract Chinese investors for the Cernavoda nuclear power plant Units 3 and 4 and the construction of new lignite power plants at Halanga and Rovinari. (One of the delegates, Minister of Economy and former Energy Minister Constantin Nita is a very passionate supporter of coal.)

Considering the sea change under way in Romania’s energy mix lignite cannot be seen as a viable way forward.

Megalomania

For many years, the Romanian governments have been locked-in the megalomaniac energy development plans, remainders of communist times, in which the country would become energy independent and a net exporter of electricity in the region. Just as its neighbouring countries, for that matter.

Although the currently installed coal capacity is twice of what is currently in use, the Romanian government makes a trip back in time and plans to build new lignite units. One of the likely reasons for falling back on lignite now is the fact that more than a dozen power stations in Romania are approaching the end of their viable economic lifespan and European laws further dictate near term decommissioning dates. The most relevant facilities that are listed for decommissioning total a capacity of 5,500 MWe.

Yet, considering the sea change under way in Romania’s energy mix (pdf) – the total installed renewable capacity has grown from a mere 1% in the early 2000s to almost 23% today (large hydro excluded) – lignite cannot be seen as a viable way forward.

Even until 2009 renewable energy production was almost non-existent in Romania. But with the creation of a support scheme in 2010 to encourage investments in clean energy, the Ministry of Economy’s National Action Plan on Renewable Energy triggered an unseen growth in the sector. Within one year the installed renewable capacity grew by more than 2.5 to 1233 MW in 2011. At the end of 2012 this figure was 2399 MW, more than five times the 469 MW from 2010. The trend is still ongoing – in July, Romania’s electricity system operator Transelectrica announced that the renewables share had again almost doubled to 4664 MW by July this year.

Rovinari

One of the planned new lignite-fired units where Chinese investors are involved is unit 7 at the Rovinari thermal power plant in the south-west of Romania. The China Huadian Engineering (CHE) is set to build the 600 MW unit while Chinese banks [ro] are to secure the financing. CHE would be the general contractor, but the actual construction would be done by Romanian companies.

Rovinari TPP, Units 3-4-5-6 (See more images from Romanian lignite installation in Bankwatch’s flickr set.)

The Romanian lignite-fired power plants at Turceni, Drobeta and Rovinari are among the most polluting industrial installations in the European Union. Coal burning in Romania is estimated to cause 2.731 premature deaths and 1.284 cases of chronic bronchitis annually.

Constructing a new unit in Rovinari is said to create 500 new jobs [ro] while burning 6 million tonnes of lignite per year. In January 2013, OEC’s manager stated [ro] that the new unit’s electricity would be exported to Austria and Turkey.

Local health impacts

The exact location of the new unit is still uncertain, but it will be somewhere very close to the existing units and therefore close to the town of Rovinari. So while the unit’s electricity will be exported, its pollution will remain in Rovinari.

The Rovinari town center

Coal’s significant impact on health has been shown by a Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) study (pdf) from May last year. The study estimates that coal burning in Romania causes among others 2.731 premature deaths each year and 1.284 cases of chronic bronchitis. It also revealed that, based on data from 2009, 3 out of the 10 most polluting industrial installations in the EU are the Romanian lignite-fired power plants at Turceni, Drobeta and – Rovinari (the current units).

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Burning more lignite is a poor alternative for an already heavily polluted area and for a country whose renewable energy potential is so large that its capacity grew ten-fold within five years. It is time for Romania to give up the construction of old-fashioned dirty energy stations.

Human chain against coal mines crosses Polish-German border

This weekend, over 7.500 people came together to form a human chain between Poland and Germany, in opposition to the expansion of lignite mines in the border area. The action, which was organised by Greenpeace with help from other NGOs across Germany and Poland, was meant to show solidarity with villagers in the south-west of Poland and south-east of Germany whose homes and livelihoods are to be destroyed if plans to expand coal mines by PGE in Poland and Vattenfal in Germany are to go ahead.

The human chain, made up of locals, activists from big cities in Poland and Germany, as well as foreign friends, stretched between the village of Grabice in Poland to Kerkwitz in Germany.

Kuba Gogolewski, one of the Bankwatch campaigners who joined the action said:

“I came to take part in the human chain because it is very important for me that Poland develops like a normal, modern country. It’s also really not okay that someone just comes and kicks 3,000 people out of their homes.”

Participants stretched the chain over the Neisse river, which constitutes the border between Poland and Germany in that area, and after forming the chain, went on to celebrate with a concert at the former border control checkpoint which separated the countries before Schengen.

The Swedish energy corporation Vattenfall is planning expand lignite mining operations in the German part of the Lausitz region. This would mean that the region’s coal-fired power plants, which are among the dirtiest in Europe, would continue to burn climate-damaging brown coal, also known as lignite, until well beyond 2050.

Anike Peters, climate & energy campaigner at Greenpeace Germany commented:

“If Vattenfalls lignite plans will be realised, there’s no way Germany can achieve its own climate goal (to reduce CO2-emissions by 40% until 2020). Additional lignite mines are not necessary. They would not only be catastrophic for people, nature and climate – it would also be highly tragic, as beyond 2030, when existing coal mines will be exhausted, renewable energies will have made coal redundant.”

A disaster is unfolding on the Polish side too. The Polish state-owned company PGE is planning to exploit the region’s gigantic coal deposits and build a huge new coal-fired power plant. Poland is the country which over the past years has been the sternest opponent to progressive EU climate policies, not in the least because of its plans to continue to rely on coal for decades to come.

While the expansion of the mines is to take place some years in the future, strong opposition has emerged over the past years. Many of the locals on both sides of the border are determined not to lose their homes. They are also interested in preserving the cultural heritage of Lusatia, a region inhabited not only by Germans and Poles, but also by Sorbs, a Slavic minority for whom this region is a unique home.

See film footage and photos from the action published by Greenpeace.

Second fatal landslide in Georgian Dariali valley

In the night of August 21, only 3 months after a landslide killed 7 people in May, a second landslide struck the Dariali valley in Georgia, near the border with Russia, where the 108 MW Dariali hydropower plant (HPP) is being constructed. So far one casualty has been confirmed with another person reported missing. The material damage is even bigger than in May.

The Georgian government announced that, as in May, the landslide was caused by the Devdoraki glacier and triggered by heavy rain through Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

While the disasters were not caused by the hydropower plant construction, they do indicate the high geological instability of the area and therefore reveal the irresponsible decision-making by the investor, the Georgian government and the the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), one of the financiers of the project.

In May this year, just days ahead of the first landslide, the EBRD approved a USD 80 million loan for the development, construction and operation of the Dariali HPP which is a part of a larger plan to develop the hydropower potential of the Tergi river and its tributaries.*

Geological experts, among them Prof. Otar Duduari, have warned (in September 2013) that the construction site has been chosen inadequately. More recently, Duduari stated that a construction of a hydropower plant anywhere in the Dariali gorge would increase the risks of natural disasters.

Georgian Bankwatch member group Green Alternative has for some time now been warning about the high geological risks in the Dariali gorge. The mountainous area is naturally prone to landslides and a major incident happens every other year.

Also the project’s own Environmental Impact Assessment (pdf) clearly identified the risks of landslides and mudflows and pointed out the need for mitigation measures and detailed geological surveillance.

Instead of addressing these warnings, the investor Dariali Energy, began the construction of the HPP in September 2011 without some of the necessary permits, as a Green Alternative fact sheet from 2012 (pdf) explains: After being contacted by Green Alternative, both the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources promised to investigate the case. But “[o]nly two months later, after the relevant agencies hastily issued permits, the both ministries declared that the company had obtained all the necessary permits for the construction.”

None of this seemed to phase the EBRD’s decision to approve the loan.

If the hydro construction continues before assessing these risks in detail and without developing the necessary steps to mitigate them, the next catastrophe may be just around the corner. If a landslide were to affect the finalised HPP, it could have a substantial multiplication effects (pdf) in terms of impacts.

Even without another landslide, the accumulation of regular sedimentation from the Tergi river’s tributaries may cause the Tergi to be blocked, resulting in the rise of its river bed. The Tergi will then not be able to transport materials brought by the Kuro river, causing the sediment to accumulate and fill the already-narrow Kuro valley, posing a threat to the settlement of Stepantsminda located upstream. (Read Green Alternatives statement after the landslide in May (pdf).)

I sincerely hope that the EBRD and Georgian Government have enough sense of responsibility towards the people living along the Tergi river to not wait for a third deadly landslide to happen. The construction of the HPP must be halted until the risks of landslides are fully addressed. If that turns out to be impossible, the construction should be taken off the table.

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* The Dariali HPP is part of a larger plan to develop the hydropower potential of the Tergi river and its tributaries. Two other plants , Larsi and Kazbegi are under the ownership of the same company – Dariali Energy. The EBRD’s USD 80 million loan constitute about 65% of the project costs for the Dariali plant.

Forests sitting on lignite saved in Romania

Agreeing to the arguments of the two NGOs, the Romanian court in Gorj County (where Rovinari is located) cancelled an environmental permit which had been granted to the owner of the Rovinari mines, state company Complexul Energetic Oltenia, to cut the forests in order to expand one of its mines.

Complexul Energetic Oltenia operates 4 lignite-fired power plants (with a total of 3,900 MW installed capacity) and 19 mining perimeters; the company’s majority shareholder is the Romanian Government.

Complexul Energetic Oltenia plans to expand a number of its open-pit operations in the Gorj County, which means hills will have to disappear together with forests, agricultural land, and parts of villages. The number of mining expansion operations is staggering while the economics of coal mining in the region are unpersuasive and social problems have been intensifying as well.

The lignite mining expansion takes place in a context where the company has difficulties in selling its output because of a decrease in electricity consumption since the start of the economic crisis coupled with a large increase in renewable energy capacities (mainly wind and solar) in Romania over the past years. Under these circumstances, the company requires ever more inventive forms of state support, sometimes in defiance of pro-competition legislation in place. These forms of state support include special treatment on the market (priority and guaranteed access to the grid) and even expropriations to be paid by the state, instead of the beneficiary.

This conflict over lignite mining is happening in a beautiful area where however people are trapped in a mono-industrial county because politics are strictly lignite-oriented and no ideas of alternative development are being pursued by regional authorities.

Even though the court case was won, there’s plenty of work ahead. Ten other court cases opened by Bankwatch and Greenpeace concerning expansion of mining in Romania still have to be ruled on, and additionally much work needs to be done to get Romanian authorities to seriously support alternatives to coal. Still, it is a good sign that court litigations on environmental matters can constitute one of the instruments for Romanian civil society to use in their campaigns.

*The court case was filed in October 2013, to annul an environmental permit for the expansion of the mine, based on the following arguments, among others:
– the environmental permitting procedure was conducted for deforestation alone, ignoring the lignite mining expansion and its other impacts
– this case of deforestation is not singular and the environmental impact should have been assessed in a cumulative manner for the entire mining operation
– there were no assessments of impacts on climate, human health, neighbouring protected areas (four Natura 2000 areas)

Sharing the shale experience

Diego di Risio works for Observatorio Petrolero Sur (Oil Observatory South), a Buenos Aires-based organisation that is part of the international south-south network Oilwatch and of Multisectorial Against Fracking, an anti-fracking campaign in the Neuquén province in Argentina.

María Carolina García works for Multisectorial Against Fracking and is an environmental expert in the government Department of Protected Areas.

There is a lot of hype about the potential for shale gas and oil in Argentina and the Neuquén province. But how advanced are these developments? How much exploration is happening? By whom? Has extraction already begun?

Diego di Risio: At the moment there are about 400 wells drilled by a number of companies (Shell, YPF, Total, Chevron, Petrobas, etc.) Even though most of them are exploratory wells, ten per cent of oil production and 20 per cent of gas production in the Neuquén region comes from unconventional sources. Only one project – between the Argentinian state company YPF and Chevron in the Vaca Muerta formation in the Neuquén basin – has entered the exploitation stage, about a month ago.

What are the specific impacts of these projects that you are concerned about?

María Carolina García: We have seen huge surface impacts by drilling platforms and highway construction and the intensive transport of water to the wells. It affects the way of live and economic activities of people in the area who grow pears and apples and raise livestock. The platforms themselves and the roads take a lot of space, reducing the size of farmland. The trucks that transport water to the platforms create a lot of dust, drying out plants.

DR: All this is happening in a very delicate, dry environment.

MCG: In addition, the methane that is being released in the extraction process is being burnt by the companies which further destroys the vegetation close to the platforms.

This reduces the available food for livestock and the quality of fruits, which are then harder to export. It will be difficult to conserve the landscape and these peoples’ economic activities after the drillings are made.

And to speak about the people themselves: indigenous communities – the Mapuche community in the Neuquén province – are treated very badly by the government and are called illegals when they are in the way.

There is also an increase in prostitution and the sexual exploitation of women in the vicinity of the extraction sites.

DR: And not only sexual exploitation of locals is a problem, but also trafficking of women from far away, even other countries. This is not only happening with oil and gas extraction, but the problem with the oil and gas industry is the amount of money involved and the concentration of many men in one place.

How many local people are affected?

DR: We’ve never studied the number of affected people living in exploration areas. But the wider economic impacts, including increasing prices, etc. is being felt by the whole country.

MCG: It is important to stress that the impacts will be also felt by future generations.The Neuquén province has a history of a hundred years of (conventional) oil and gas exploitation. A lot of places were deforested and have not recovered after tens of years, natural habitats have been fragmented. Because of this, it will be very difficult to have other economic activities for a long time.

How do the companies like Chevron or Total treat local communities and others opposing unconventional fossil fuels? Are their legal or even physical threats?

DR: One case that is exemplary for many others is that of the Flores family. They have lived for thirty years on their land near the town of San Patricio del Chañar in Neuquén province.

Shell began exploration in the area in 2011 and drilled three wells on their land without holding a consultation with the family. When the dialogue finally happened, the company promised solutions that never materialised. It constructed roads, wells, a big open pool but provided no compensation.

They don’t have electricity or running water. Their main livelihood is based on raising goats. And Shell came and built one hundred metres from the house that enormous pool and an electricity transmission line, while the family remained without electricity and all the infrastructure made their farming activities more difficult and less productive.

When this situation was reported on Dutch televisions, Shell published a statement announcing the family was an illegal occupant of the land.

How is the land ownership regulated?

DR: In the case of this family and in indigenous communities generally a special right usually regulates these matters, that says once you occupy land for twenty years, the land is yours.

The problem is that although the communities should also have land titles, this is not always the case. And the Argentinian state – as in the case of this family – has often not taken any steps to solve the situation and create a land access maps for example. So when oil and gas companies come, they just say these people are illegal.

The people don’t have enough money to hire a lawyer. So they are not only unable to defend themselves from the fracking activities, but also have no legal means to demand from the state to acknowledge them as the land’s rightful owners.

What role does the central government and the provincial governments play? Are provincial governors and parliaments representing their communities’ interests?

DR: The central government basically says there is no alternative to shale. It promotes it and has used violence against those opposing it.

MCG: Also at a provincial level, where the same party rules for 60 years now, the large majority takes a similar position as the central government. Only a few parliamentarians in our region of Neuquén are against fracking, but they are a very small minority.

Coming to the opposition against shale gas and shale oil. Does your resistance have roots in other movements in Argentina?

DR: The resistance built upon many years of struggle by unions (especially teachers’ and public workers’ unions) and on strong social and environmental movements against open-pit mining and the expansion of transgenic soybean monoculture. But also the previous left-wing party and other social movements were involved in creating the anti-fracking resistance.

It was very important for us to see that the issue of fracking were approached by different people and organisations from different angles and with different priorities – from an environmental and cultural perspective (where indigenous groups for example play an important role) to an economic and social one.

Watch highlights of Diego and Carolina’s visit to the Czech Republic.

MCG: Our initiative Multisectorial against fracking for example also includes two feminist organisations who work on the issues of sexual exploitation and trafficking that we’ve mentioned.

DR: With Multisectorial we specifically try to create a balance between these priorities. Fracking and unconventional fuels in general are certainly a big crisis, but they also offer a chance to join forces and try to overcome the barriers between these groups in order to tackle the complex problems our societies face today.

What form does your protest take?

MCG: We have a lot of different activities. We organise protests and blockades at drilling sites when companies expand into protected areas or areas where indigenous people live. We also organise protests where politicians and companies have their meetings. We gather outside the building for a colourful demonstration where we sing, paint messages on the walls and so on.

We approach media with press releases and comments when new developments occur, when a company expands its activities and the like.

DR: In terms of communications one of our goals is to spread the issue on a national level. One of the dangers is that the issue and the discussion around it remains stuck in the region where the extraction happens and no one else notices.

What chances do communities have against the powerful players, governments and companies? Has anything you’ve done been particularly successful?

MCG: A big success for Argentina as a whole is that several municipalities have declared themselves fracking free zones. However, in the Neuquén province, which is very rich in shale gas and oil, it is much more difficult to do that and only one municipality has prohibited fracking.

But also in our region we had some achievements, for example protests and court cases have managed to push companies out of protected areas. Companies that were exposed for disregarding the rights of locals, like the family we’ve spoken about, have finally started dialogues with them.

Unfortunately, so far these are not great success yet. The drilling continues directly next to the protected areas and affects them in the same way. And the dialogues between families and companies has so far not brought any concrete results. In the Neuquén province we weren’t able to completely block drilling activities so far.

DR: Still, the movement against fracking was really effective in raising awareness. Despite a lack of resources and the unfavorable conditions in Argentina, in just one year fracking has become a national issue, all the no-fracking zones Carolina mentioned were established and companies felt the need to react with large PR campaigns claiming that fracking is safe.

Also the fact that the discussion around fracking linked economic with environmental concerns, which usually were much less important in Argentina, was an enormous success for us.

Does public opinion support your struggle?

DR: I don’t have a concrete figure, but a recent survey showed that – with regards to the Neuquén province – the majority of people are not on our side, but think that the Vaca Muerta should be exploited.

MCG: Argentina is so big and our struggle concerns only this one small area, so most people in other parts of Argentina don’t really care. They are more concerned about the prices (of energy) but don’t want to know about other consequences.

Last question: You’ve done an almost three-week tour in Europe meeting other anti-fracking activists along the way. With fracking being an issue whose direct impacts are usually concentrated on a local level, do you think meeting and cooperating with people and groups working on the same issue can help your struggle in Argentina?

MCG: Meeting other people in the same situation helped us understand how the problems are really everywhere the same and that after all we are fighting for the same cause.

We could also see during the tour that even though the problems are the same, the context is different in different countries. For example, while in France or the Netherlands moratoriums and prohibitions are already offering some protection, here in Poland there is a lot of pressure for shale gas and the government rhetoric only focuses on energy security and independence from Russian gas. Poland and Argentina are similar in this regard.

DR: The tour and meeting other activists allowed us to find and apply new tactics and courses of actions, for example exploring legal responsibilities of companies in their home countries (like Total in France), increasing pressure on the companies in their countries by speaking to the media or parliamentarians, or raising questions during company general meetings like we did with Shell.

So this trip was very useful in enlarging our network, but also very concretely to pursue specific activities.