Four months resisiting Scottish Coal, action, sabotage, public meetings, corrupt MPs and coal victories accross the UK – the Mainshill Solidarity Camp October Newsletter has it all.

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Solidarity Camp October Newsletter

Four Months on at Mainshill Wood

The Summer drew to an end and the nights close in, but the Solidarity Camp is still going strong, stopping the opencasting of Mainshill Woods by Scottish Coal. In the last month attempts have been made to start work on the site but the resistance has been strong.
For the bad news first Scottish Coal brought back the contractors Scottish Woodlands to clear fell the plantation on the site despite this often being 10s of metres from campers homes. Drilling has also continued in fields adjacent to the occupied site. The good news is that this has been met with fierce resistance from the solidarity camp and its supporters who have repeatedly stopped work by blocking and sabotaging the machines. There was also a well attended public meeting in Douglas on the health impacts of open cast mining which has continued the campaign’s emphasis on community health, with national expert on poisons Dr Stenis.

In the wider fight against coal in the UK resistance in Scotland is seeming especially important as E.ON announced it has shelved plans for a new power station at Kingsnorth. This increases the significance of Hunterston as a site for a new power station. However just days after E.ON’s announcement, Dong Energy – Denmark’s national energy company – withdrew their 50% investment in the proposed coal-fired power station at Hunterston leaving Peel Energy Ayrshire Power Limited saying they can go it alone.
Read on to find out more…

Return of the Contractors…

Since mid September the drillers and loggers have returned. Independent contractors had been hired by Scottish Woodlands to harvest the wood before the site was mined. However when the Mainshill Solidarity Camp started these contractors refused to carry on the work out of safety concerns. As a result, in the last month SW have decided to do the harvesting themselves with a more aggressive approach than the previous loggers, disregarding the safety of camp residents on a number of occassions and repeatedly violating Health and Safety regulations which state that work must stop when anyone is within 70 metres of machinery.

There have been lots of actions to prevent their work. Attempts to begin drilling on site again were prevented when an intrepid camper climbed and immobilised a rig for the day. After that drilling only took place on fields adjacent to the site and with 24hr security, floodlights and fencing.

On Tuesday 6th October at around 9.30pm a harvesting machine started cutting the last lines of trees separating the camp from the rest of the site, and was dangerously close to treehouses and tunnels which people are inhabiting. Camp residents quickly surrounded the machine, and remonstrated with the driver, forcing him to back off. As a result of this action, Scottish Woodlands agreed not to fell at night anymore.

Two days later work was stopped all day by late night sabotage in which all the logging machines had their locks glued by autonomous people acting in solidarity with all those who oppose the open-casting of Mainshill. Given the urgency of stopping the logging work which facilitates Scottish Coal’s plans for coal extraction, damaging the machinery was a necessary last resort to protect the site the people of Douglas cherish as one of the last unmined areas of their valley.

Work was stopped again on Tuesday the 13th by campers rigging a skyraft across a logging road used to get the machines on and off site. The blockade lasted from 5 in the morning untill 12.30 and work didn’t resume untill later that afternoon. There was a heavy police presence, and the occupant of the raft was arrested and charged with breach of the peace.

Driller Killers

Despite the heightened level of security the early hours of October 20th saw more resistance. Machinery which is being used to prepare the way for the open casting process including two drilling machines, three felling vehicles and a free standing flood light were sabotaged. An anonymous communique announced that “machines had their fuel lines, wires, gears and fuel tanks destroyed. Their windows and bodys where also spraypainted … This action was taken by a group of autonomous people in solidarity with all those who oppose the development of Mainshill Wood into an open cast coal mine.”

Healthy Valley? Public Meeting

Over 90 people attended the public meeting held in Douglas on Wednesday 23rd September to hear evidence of the devastating effects that opencasting has on the health of near-by communities. Dr. Van Steenis gave compelling evidence that there is a direct link between certain health problems -heart disease, respiratory disease and some kidney problems – and two decades of Scottish Coal’s opencast mines.

Attendees at the meeting were reminded that experts have their place. While Steenis’s research is undoubtedly valuable, his solutions range from short sighted to laughable. He recommended that villagers should just take more exercise and even suggested that the whole vilage could be moved!! These solutions are based on the assumption that we must accomodate coal expansion in the UK. But old king coal not only can but must be stopped if we care about the health of communities where mining happens, the state of our countryside and the UK having any chance of meeting its CO2 reduction targets.

Change in the Wind

Given the recent developments in UK coal expansion with E.ON and Dong retreating from projects, there is a new optimism among anti-coal campaigners. However, Scotland was always going to bare the brunt of an expansion in British reliance on coal for energy, especially with regard to mining. Parts of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire are set to become the most mined areas of Europe. Much of the resistance to the demand for coal has been focused on Kingsnorth in Kent and powerstations in the north of England. Yet, if we want to stop coal being burned we must continue to oppose mining as well as prevent the development of new demand. This means targetting the coal industry in Scotland, open-cast sites such as that proposed for Mainshill and making sure that Hunterston powerstation is never built.

Check out Communities Opposed to New Coal at Hunterston -http://www.conchcampaign.org/

Ravenstruther shut again!

On October 5th South Lanarkshire saw the second blockade of Ravenstruther coal railhead,where coal from local open casts is loaded onto trains and taken south to power stations. Ten people took part with two people D-locked to the front gate and two more up a support strut of the three storey conveyor belt with a banner reading ‘No New Coal’. The blockade lasted 7 hours, keeping coal lorries off the roads and leading to the cancellation of three trains. There were 5 arrests for Breach of the Peace but everyone got out on bail and was in high spirits having cost Scottish coal £180 000. This action stopped the transport of 6,380 tonnes of coal which is equivalent to 11,675,400 kg CO2, not bad for a days work.

Not even the corporations believe in ‘clean coal’…

The myth of “clean coal” touted by governments, energy and coal mining companies was dealt a severe blow when Dong pulled out of another coal fired power station project in Germany and said it would convert two of its coal power stations to biomass in order to reduce CO2 emissions. It is clear that despite its own rhetoric and greenwash, not even Dong believes Carbon Capture and Storage will substantially reduce CO2 emissions from coal-fired power staions.

Politician Bought Off… Suprised?

Jim Hood, Labour MP for Lanark and Hamilton East, got £625 from Scottish Coal last month for doing nothing – as a “retainer”, just to keep him sweet. But would a big corporation like Scottish Coal really give away money for free? All the retainers must influence the decisions he helps make in South Lanarkshire over open casts. Then again, maybe he’s being paid to ignore community concerns and do nothing about the devastating impacts of open cast coal mining?