Today we reel at the news of 29 dead inside the labyrinth of tunnels that is the Pike River coal mine. The news alone horrifies - and the whole country is mourning those men (some no more than boys) and thinking of their families today. I guess there are also many like me who are wondering how it is - with the obvious dangers involved - that men are still used to retrieve coal from under the earth in this manner.
My grandfather started his working life in the mines in the north of England but hated it, and quit to work at sea. For many there isn't this choice. They know mining is dangerous but it's ready work and work they can do -- and some, like the 17 year old who died at Pike River at his first day on the job, regard mining as an exciting career. All these men trust the mining companies will have their back.
Interestingly, the Pike River mines investor fact sheet on the Pike River website describes how the coal is mined and transported and what it's used for but it does not once mention the men who walk into the kilometres of underground tunnels on a remote mountainside every day to drill out the coal. It does not include a single picture of a miner at work.
Which makes you wonder really about both the company and the industry. Who are they looking out for? What price are they willing to pay? And should we let them?
Extract:
In the Pike River mines Pike River metallurgical hard coking coal is particularly sought after by coke makers and steel mills because of its high quality, including the lowest ash content in the world at one percent, and very low phosphorous levels.
*
Two mining methods are used. The first involves large cutting machines to create roadways in the Brunner seam and the second uses hydraulic monitors (water cannons) to break up the coal face at the rate of 2,000 tonnes-a-day using high pressure blasting. The crushed coal is washed down flumes into a low pressure water pipe which carries the coal 10 kilometres downhill to a coal preparation plant for cleaning, grading, and stockpiling.
From the coal preparation plant, the coal is trucked 20 kilometres to the nearest railhead near the small community of Ikamatua and loaded onto coal trains for a 250 kilometre journey to the east coast export port of Lyttelton.
***
In light of that, here's an adaptation of the old poem 'For want of a nail' that gives investors a fuller picture of the Pike River mine:
For Want
Wanting machines - steel the cost.
Wanting steel - coal the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Wanting coal - man the cost.
Mary McCallum
2 comments:
Sombre reading Mary, in your response to this awful awful event. Your 29 lines underline again for me how many individuals have died - paid the price.
"For many there isn't this choice." Actually, I think that on the West Coast of NZ today there is very much a choice whether to continue to engage in mining or not. But mining is part of the cultural heritage of Coasters and so they stick with it. This doesn't what make what happened any less tragic but I do feel it is erroneous to suggest that there are no other choices for Coasters except to engage in mining.
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