The ecological damage of mineral exploitation is serious and the problem of green mine construction is prominent

I. Basic information

Guizhou is a big province of mineral resources, but nearly half of all kinds of mines have the problem of incomplete procedures. In recent years, some places have extensively exploited mineral resources, and ecological restoration has lagged behind, causing a great impact on the ecological environment. In particular, the exploitation of mineral resources in Xiowen County of Guiyang City and Huangping County of Qiandongnan Prefecture has been plagued by serious violations of laws and regulations, ecological damage and environmental pollution.

Second, major issues

(1) Prominent problems in the field of green mine construction

Relevant state departments issued the "Green Mine Evaluation Indicators", "business licenses, mining licenses, safety licenses are legal and effective", "have not been subject to administrative penalties in the past three years or the penalties have been rectified", "the mining area does not involve all types of protected areas" as a prerequisite for green mine construction. Inspectors found that most of the 14 green mines built in Xiuwen County in 2020 do not meet the above conditions, of which the Changchong Dachou bauxite mine did not obtain a safety production license when declaring, and 13 mines such as Majiaoqiao sand and gravel factory have been punished 47 times by the relevant departments since 2018 for encroaching on forest land. In October 2021, it was found that 12 of the 14 green mines had problems of serious ecological damage and lagging ecological restoration to varying degrees, among which ecological restoration measures such as soil covering and greening in some areas of Luohanpo sand Mine of Sunshine Sand and Gravel Factory were not in place, only laying green dust screens and hanging plastic leaves for false rectification.

Guizhou Huangping Fucheng Industrial Co., Ltd. Maiba bauxite illegal problems, serious ecological damage, nearly three years have been punished 62 times by the relevant departments, but Huangping County still through its green mine preliminary examination. Chaling Au sandstone Park illegally encroached on the Wuyanghu National Forest Park in Guizhou Province, but passed the preliminary review of green mine. In September 2021, the above two problem mines successfully passed the layers of evaluation and were included in the first batch of provincial green mines in Guizhou Province in 2021.

(2) The problem of illegal mining is very serious

Guizhou Huangping Fucheng Industrial Co., Ltd. Maiba bauxite is located in Luoqinpo mining area of Huangping County. It obtained the mining license in May 2014 and approved the mining method as "first mining area - replacement mining area - later mining area". The mining area covers 344.7 hectares. For a long time, without going through the procedures of land requisitioning and forest land occupation, the company adopted labor subcontracting to transfer responsibility, subcontracted the Maiba bauxite to 86 individuals for mining, and arbitrarily changed the mining mode from stage mining to simultaneous and alternate stripping. Ecological restoration was not timely and standardized, and the ecological environment of the mining area was seriously damaged. 53.5 hectares of forest land and 4.9 hectares of arable land were illegally occupied. Inspectors found that there were as many as 30 mining sites, mining operations "everywhere", and the ecological destruction of the entire mining area was shocking. In October 2021, the preliminary investigation found that a large number of associated mines and waste rock and waste slag were piled up or landfilled at will, and some leached water directly penetrated into the ground or into the mountain pond, seriously polluting the surrounding environment. The monitoring results show that the pH value of the leached water accumulated nearby is 2, which is strongly acidic, and the chemical oxygen demand, copper, arsenic, cadmium and chromium concentrations are 52 times, 8 times, 10 times, 84 times and 10 times higher than the surface water Class III standard, respectively.

Xianggupo bauxite mine in Xiuwen County has been illegally mined for a long time without obtaining a safety production license according to law, and has destroyed 7.8 hectares of forest land since October 2017. Huangping County Xingda Mining Co., Ltd. Wangjiazhai bauxite also has similar problems of illegal and ecological damage.

In addition, Huangping County also has the problem of ineffective implementation of negative list requirements. In September 2016, Huangping County was included in the scope of national key ecological functional zones. In December 2017, Guizhou Province listed bauxite mining as a prohibited industry on the negative list of Huangping County. Huangping County has not implemented the relevant requirements, resulting in Maiba bauxite, Wangjiazhai bauxite and other mines that should be closed by the end of 2018 are still illegal mining, remote sensing images show that since 2019, the above two mines have added nearly 28 hectares of ecological damage area.