The
coal mine fire at Hazelwood has blanketed the town of Morwell with
ash, and locals are strapping on face masks. Tom Doig visited the
town this week - and came back coughing up blood
By
Tom Doig
27
Febraury, 2014
On
Friday night in Melbourne I bumped into Raku Pitt, who lives in
Wollangarra, 100 kilometres north-east of Morwell. Pitt had driven
through Morwell that afternoon, and was visibly shaken. He said it
was “like Mordor”.
“There’s
ash raining from the sky, a horrible stink in the air,” he told me.
“The coal mine fire’s going to burn for weeks, it’s right next
to town and no one knows what’s in the smoke. People are wearing
face-masks, hiding in their houses — it’s like a zombie movie.”
On
Sunday afternoon, I bought a face-mask and drove to Morwell to see it
for myself.
A
couple of kilometres out of town, the air turned grey. The tree
trunks changed from brown to bright black, and the gum leaves were
bleached a dirty ash-blond from last fortnight’s bushfires.
Road-signs were still standing but the paint had burnt off, leaving
them shiny and raw.
At
4:30pm, downtown Morwell was deserted — although, to be fair, it
was a Sunday afternoon. Small grey chunks of ash blew out of the sky
like dirty anorexic snowflakes; it smelled like a bad barbecue. The
first person I saw on the streets wasn’t wearing a face-mask; he
ambled out of Morwell Station, sat down on a bench and slowly rolled
a cigarette.
At
the CFA information bus in the Mid Valley Shopping car park, Belgrave
South CFA member Alan Dixon was handing out face-masks and reassuring
locals that everything was fine. However, he was also telling
residents that, if possible, they should leave town and stay with
friends or family elsewhere.
Dixon
said the fire-fighters were doing their best, but it could take
weeks, even months, to put the fire out. He gave me a face-mask and
advised me not to spend the night in downtown Morwell, where the
smoke was worst. I considered putting on the mask, but since the CFA
staff weren’t wearing them, I didn’t either.
EPA
Environmental Protection Officer Mel North said that the fire was
either started by a lightning strike, or by an arsonist —
investigations were underway. However, any discussion of the causes
of the fire misses the point: the Hazelwood open-cut coal mine was an
accident waiting to happen.
As
North informed me, one of the parts of the coal mine that was now
quietly ablaze had been disused for 10 years. However, locals are
alleging that the owners of the mine, GDF SUEZ Energy International,
had failed to rehabilitate the land.
A
number of Morwell residents told me that GDF Suez had not “capped”
the old mine site with clay so that the coal was no longer
exposed. They had not revegetated the area, so that any fire
would pass through above rather than below ground. And they had not
installed a sprinkler system as an interim plan while waiting to put
in place more permanent measures. I put these allegations to GDF and
got no reply.
I
asked North if the EPA knew what was in the smoke; she said that
scientists were currently conducting tests. When pressed for details,
she became defensive and asked me if I was a journalist working on
Monash Arts Online’s Dangerous Ground project.
Dangerous
Ground, a website that investigates environmental regulation, had
severely embarrassed the EPA back in 2008, when a methane gas leak
from an old landfill site in suburban Cranbourne led to widespread
evacuations at the nearby Brookland Greens housing estate. A 2011
Ombudsman’s
Report concluded
the that “the EPA failed to protect the environment from […] 1992
to June 2008.”
While
North told me that the EPA had yet to find anything conclusive in
their tests of the smoke around Morwell, an ABC
report two days earlier
confirmed that the Authority had “confirmed traces of metal in the
air, and some other particles as well […] including nitrogen and
sulphur”. However, the EPA told the ABC that these contaminants
were “not at levels considered harmful”.
The
primary concern of both the CFA and the EPA in Morwell seemed to be
minimising public alarm, rather than providing detailed information.
A common refrain went along these lines: “I’m not wearing a mask;
if it was really dangerous, do you think I’d be standing out here?”
However, most of the emergency services staff I talked to did not
live in Morwell. They were working there for a few days before
returning to their homes elsewhere.
At
the Morwell Bowls Club, business was slow on a Sunday night — 10
diners in a bistro that seats close to 80. The Bowls Club is only 500
meters away from the fires, which made for bad air but striking
sunsets.
Photo
by Tom Doig.
The
bartender said that all the Bowls Club staff had been offered
face-masks that morning, but she wasn’t wearing hers. “That’d
scare the customers away, wouldn’t it?” she said.
“Good
point,” I said. “It’d be like eating in a hospital.” I had a
parma. As I left, the bartender called out “Come back when it’s
clear!”
I
slept badly. The next morning I felt tired and groggy, as if I’d
smoked half a packet of cigarettes the night before. I went to the
bathroom and started coughing up bright green phlegm. Outside, the
ash was thick on car bonnets and windshields. A Cedar Lodge employee
was hosing off the plants in the garden. As one wit tweeted,
“Morwell smells like a briquette broke wind”.
Photo
by Tom Doig.
Inside
the St Vincent de Paul thrift shop, everyone was coughing and
complaining about their health.
“They
told me not to turn my air-conditioning on,” one elderly customer
said. “It brings more stuff in. But I was desperate, so I turned it
on. It helped a little.”
Unfortunately,
while the woman’s air conditioner might filter the larger chunks of
coal-ash, it will not filter PM2.5 particles, which are less than 2.5
microns wide (there are 10,000 microns in a centimetre) and are of
significant concern to older people.
According
to Chief Health Officer Rosemary Lester, PM2.5 particles “can cause
short-term health effects”, but the long-term health effects aren’t
known. When asked by a reporter if this was because of a “knowledge
gap”, Lester replied: “There isn’t a complete knowledge gap.”
“Studies
have linked exposure to particle pollution to a number of health
problems including respiratory illnesses (such as asthma and
bronchitis) and cardiovascular disease. In addition, the chemical
components of some particles, particularly combustion products, have
been shown to cause cancer. These effects are often more pronounced
for vulnerable groups, such as the very young and the elderly.”
This
calls to mind a line from Frederick Buell’s book, From Apocalypse
to Way of Life: “risk calculations mean that a certain number of
individual people are likely to subsidize industry with their lives”.
A
“respite centre” has been set up in Moe. However, a Salvation
Army volunteer described the centre as a joke. “You can’t stay
there overnight, it’s only open from 9am till 7pm," the
volunteer said. "So you drive there, sit on a wooden chair all
day doing nothing then drive home again. I’d rather stay at home,
at least I can watch TV.”
Another
local said that the “fallout” from the fires would likely hang
around for years. They suggested that a class-action lawsuit might be
taken against GDF SUEZ Energy International — a suggestion that was
echoed
yesterday by the ABC.
This
would be similar to earlier class actions in Morwell against the
Hazelwood power station, which was once riddled with asbestos and
still contains, according to International Power Hazelwood
spokesperson Neil Lawson, “an amount of contained asbestos
material”. “Contained”, that is, as long as the power station
itself doesn’t burn
to the ground.
In
the Latrobe Regional Gallery, all the staff were wearing face-masks.
“Of
course I’m wearing a face-mask,” one worker said, “I’ve been
wearing a face-mask since last Monday! I live out of town and I get
to work and in half an hour I’ve got a headache. If you’re not
wearing one you’re crazy.”
Despite
the gallery’s best efforts, ash was getting in under the doors and
affecting the artworks.
In
the gallery’s café, I overheard locals talking about out-of-town
journalists sniffing around. “A TV crew came to my neighbour’s
house, asking him questions, taking pictures,” one said. “Then he
came over to me, asked if I wanted to talk to him. Why would I want
to talk to him? Why would I want to be on telly?”
Minutes
later, an elderly man collapsed outside Morwell Station. Three
paramedics attended to him, preparing to load him into an ambulance.
It wasn’t clear whether the man was suffering from respiratory
problems — and if so, whether the coal smoke had “caused” his
collapse.
The
mood in Morwell was a mixture of panic and frustration, resignation
and outrage. Some townspeople see the recent media interest in the
“firebug” story as a way of diverting attention from the real
story: corporate negligence and government nonchalance.
A
rally is planned at 2pm this Sunday, outside Morwell’s Kernot Hall.
The protest is called Disaster In The Valley — Dying For Help, and
the Facebook event
page
states:
“It
has come to light that this part of the mine was supposed to be
capped and re-mediated to prevent fire … but it was not. It has
come to light that there should have been fire safety infrastructure
in place while the coal was exposed … but it was not.”
The
rally is scheduled to take place outside; people are being encouraged
to “make it cool to wear the face-masks” by decorating the masks
in kooky or political ways.
I
left Morwell on Monday afternoon. The Princes Freeway takes you right
past the fire. No flames are visible, but there is a long, low
smoking cliff face. A couple of kilometres to the west there is a
field of scorched black grass leading under a protective fence, all
the way to the mine.
Photo
by Tom Doig.
In
other words, GDF Suez left a huge wall of flammable coal exposed to
the elements in a fire season. If anything, Morwell might well be
fortunate that a similar mine fire hasn’t broken out earlier.
I
took photographs with my phone until I started coughing, then got
into my not-so-white car and drove back to the big smoke. By
Wednesday, I was coughing and my phlegm had blood in it. I probably
should have worn that face mask.
GDF
did not respond to questions from the author by deadline.
Victoria’s
coal fire poses a rare challenge for firefighting
28
Febraury, 2014
Victoria’s
Hazelwood coal mine is still burning, nearly three weeks after it
started from a grassfire during severe fire conditions. Police
are currently
investigating the
original fire for arson. Meanwhile health
concerns continue
for firefighters and residents
in the nearby town of Morwell,
with air quality very poor due to particulates produced in the fire.
Although
rare, coal
fires can burn for decades —
though the Hazelwood fire will probably not last that long,
especially given the current firefighting effort. (The latest Country
Fire Authority updates are here.)
But
what does the current fire tell us about our preparation for
potential future fires?
Coal fires: rare, but dangerous
The
Morwell Open Cut Mine is a large brown coal mine, close to homes and
the Hazelwood power station (which is why the fire is being referred
to by the Country
Fire Authority and others as the Hazelwood fire).
These factors mean that the Hazelwood fire poses a threat to safety
of the community andenergy
supplies.
It
is rare for a coal mine fire to pose such a significant threat.
The Jharia
coal fire in
India has been burning since at least 1916 and has caused serious
health problems and subsidence in nearby villages and slums.
Another
fire in
2006 at the Hazelwood mine did
cause loss of generating capacity to the nearby power station.
:
;"
;"
Trying to
quench the fire still burning at Hazelwood open-cut mine. AAP
Image/Incident Control Centre Hazelwood
The
risk of a fire in an open-cut coal mine depends on several factors.
Fire
is caused by the combination of three elements: a fuel that can burn,
an air supply, and the heat generated by the combustion process. Coal
is, of course, the fuel, while the atmosphere supplies the air, and
any coal reacting with air will generate heat.
Most
coal mined in Australia is black coal, which is geologically older
and much less reactive than brown coal.
In
the Hazelwood situation the coal fire was started
by the grass fire.
The coal seam at this mine is very close to the surface, so the heat
from the grass fire would easily transfer to the coal seam.
If
the seam is fractured and porous, the air would get into the coal and
the coal would quickly dry out to a point where it will react with
the air, until the coal temperature could increase to flame point and
burn. The thickness of the coal seam also meant that there was a
large mass of coal available to combust.
It
is very rare to get a coal fire of the scale found at Morwell. Most
open-cut coal fires in Australia have been caused by unusual
circumstance, such as the intersection of the open cut mine with old
underground coal mine roadways, which facilitate air paths into the
coal seam. At these mines, the fire is controlled through prevention
by isolating the underground areas, covering the exposed tunnels to
prevent air getting in and only exposing small amounts of coal at a
time for mining.
Fighting fire with more than water
Treatment
of a fire at a coal mine depends upon the size and location of the
fire and the available resources. If the fires are small they can be
quenched with water, covered in foam and the offending area dug out
and removed.
Large
underground fires are often sealed in and the area is filled with
inert gas. If possible, and the topography of the coal seam suits it,
the area may be flooded.
Open-cut
fires similarly depend upon size, location and access.
Often
the fire consists of relatively small amounts of smouldering coal
under the surface (such as Burning
Mountain in
New South Wales, 6,000 years old and considered the oldest coal fire
in the world). This can be treated by drilling into the areas and
injecting with water, foams or other wetting and suppression agents.
They can also be treated by compacting the surface above the coal
seam and covering the surface with an impervious layer to prevent air
entering the seam.
Why is Morwell’s blaze so hard to put out?
Large
scale open-cut fires such as at Morwell are far more difficult to
manage. The scale of the fire precludes the use of many high-tech
solutions due to the lack of bulk materials.
Water
is usually the first resort to quench the active fire. Additives can
be used in the water to enhance its capacity to quench the fire.
The
location of the fire at Morwell makes close access problematic as the
smoke and fumes pose a significant health risk to the firefighters
(not to mention other emergency workers like parademics,
along with local residents). The logistics of dealing with this size
of fire are quite staggering in terms of people, machinery, water and
length of time.
The
danger is that the visible fire will be extinguished but the
underlying coal will remain hot. If this is the case and air can get
into the seam, the fire can rekindle, days, months or even years into
the future. This has been observed here and overseas on many
occasions. Brown coal has to be kept moist to prevent it
spontaneously combusting.
Better risk management
Now,
there needs to be a review of fire management plans at the Hazelwood
mine. Clearly the mine can’t prevent arson, but it should be able
to prevent the coal igniting and spreading through the coal seam.
Where
the fire is currently burning has not been mined for many years.
Theoretically, this could have been rehabilitated and capped,
although this is not without difficulties.
Perhaps
the simplest solution is to have water supplies in the abandoned
areas. While we can’t control where the coal is or what starts a
fire, the mine can ensure precautions are in place to prevent future
fires.
How do we stop this happening again?
It
would be reasonable of the regulator to ask the mine to demonstrate
that a fire like the current one cannot recur.
The
previous fire in 2006 should have triggered a review of the safety
management system in accordance with the requirements of Australian
Standard AS4804 and the OHS regulations. The controls before 2006 and
implemented as a result of that event are clearly not adequate.
Adequate
controls may well be very expensive. Consideration could be given to
reshaping the batters and capping with an inert material before
revegetation occurs.
Controls
need to be effective. Access to the grassland could be restricted
with better security and inspections. Improved fire detection systems
could be installed, such as are used to detect bushfires. Improved
water reticulation systems could be installed.
A
thorough investigation should also look at the issue of the initial
response. When was the fire first detected? What was the early
response? When was it realised that the mine was under threat?
Any
argument about the cost of controls must recognise the direct and
indirect costs of the current incident to Victorians – and
particularly the locals living in and around Morwell
A
bit of context -
Massive
Underground Coal Fire Started in 1962 Still Burns Today
9
December, 2009
You
may have already heard the story of Centralia, PA, a coal mining town
that had some 1,000 inhabitants at its peak. Now, that population is
down to 9. It's become a ghost town for one of the most bizarre
reasons imaginable—a fire started in 1962 to burn
trash in a dump inadvertently
spread to a coal seam underground and has simply never stopped
burning. The most recent report, published Dec. 1st in the Bismarck
Tribune,
confirms that the fire continues to this day--it's lasted an
incredible 47
years so far.
The
Coal Fire of Centralia
The
fire, which was started by five members of the volunteer fire company
when they were hired by the town council to clean up the landfill,
was not properly extinguished and spread to become one of the longest
burning coal fires. According to Thinking
Blog,
which provides a short history of the fire, the landfill was located
in an abandoned strip mine pit and as the firemen had in the past,
they set the dump on fire, let it burn for a time, and then
extinguished the fire, or so they thought.
It
turns out the fire spread through a hole in the rock pit into an
abandoned coal mine underground, where it grew in intensity. It
continued to rage for years, putting the towns' citizens at grave
risk, writes Thinking
Blog:
State-wide
attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when
12-year-old boy fell into a sinkhole 45 metres deep that suddenly
opened beneath his feet. He was saved after his older cousin pulled
him from the mouth of the hole before he could plunge to his probable
death. The incident brought national attention to Centralia and in
1984 U.S. Congress allocated more than $42 million for relocation
efforts.
Now,
a mere 9 people continue to live on the hazardous
lands,
while the fire is now thought to have spread to an area of over 500
acres. Some worst-case scenario estimates fear the fire could
eventually spread to an area of 3700 acres, and burn for another 100
years. Centralia's history was the inspiration for the horror film
Silent Hill.
Coal
Fires Around the World
Now,
the story of Centralia, while fascinating due to its intriguing
narrative and dramatic history, is by no means unique.
Decades-burning coal fires are unfortunately rather commonplace. In
fact, it's estimated that a stunning 2-3% of the entire world's
industrial carbon emissions may come from uncontained
coal fires in China alone--where
such fires burn 20
million tons of coal a year.
The Tribune
explains:
Such
unwanted coal fires rage or smolder in the United States, South
Africa, Australia, China, India and beyond. They are burning in huge
volumes in rural China and blazing in a district of India to such a
great extent the flames from some surface coal fires are more than 20
feet high. Here in the U.S., they are burning in Pennsylvania,
Kentucky, Colorado and Wyoming as you read these words.
An
underground coal fire is nearly impossible to control, and since many
other materials are burned along with the coal, large amounts of
other greenhouse gases like methane are released as well. Such fires
have raged for decades--and are still raging--in Colorado and
Pennsylvania.
Coal
fires have been called a 'global catastrophe', and for good reason.
The world's worst are thought to be in China,
India, and Indonesia, but obviously, they're endemic wherever coal
stores
are found. Technology
is slowly being developed
to aid the fight in extinguishing the coal fires--let's hope it's
ready sooner rather than later, as these fires are atrocious
polluters, and an unnecessary danger to human life.
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