The road to ecological restoration in the mining area: the old wounds and the new life of "Scattering the Jiangnan"
Before the renovation, the mining site of the Sanguankou mining area in Liupanshan.
Picture of this edition / picture provided by interviewee
After the renovation, the Sanguankou mine has undergone vegetation restoration.
The sand mining area at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain before remediation.
After rectification, the mining subsidence area was built into a leisure park, and the remaining mine pits became an ecological park.
Under Helan Mountain, there is a map of Pingchuan.
On Helan Mountain, the stars are moving.
More than 30 years later, Wang Huiming, director of the Ningxia Land Rehabilitation and Restoration Center, still remembers the scene he saw when he first entered the Helan Mountain mining area in the late 1980s.
"It is full of coal mines, one by one, unfamiliar people come in and they will definitely get lost."
The great change started in 2017.
Under the clarion call of ecological civilization construction, an ecological defense battle started in Helan Mountain.
169 human activities in the nature reserve were comprehensively treated, 83 mining rights were all withdrawn, 50 industrial and mining facilities were completely demolished, and all open-pit coal mines in key peripheral areas were closed.
This is a rectification of the "Broken Arm of a Strong Man".
"Economically speaking, the loss is certainly great, but ecologically speaking, it is definitely beneficial." Zhang Li, the second-level inspector of the Ningxia Department of Natural Resources, said frankly.
Today, the ecological restoration of mining areas in Helan Mountain, Liupan Mountain and other places in Ningxia is moving towards a rebirth of ecological industrialization, and has become a practical sample of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains".
Sand pits become vineyards
At the end of September, the grapes on the eastern foot of Helan Mountain were ripe.
In the 2000 acres of grape fields, clusters of purple grapes are adorned on the vines, one by one, out of sight.
The owner of the vineyard, Yuan Hui, is very proud of these grapes. "Don't look sour, they can make the best wine."
This winery, located in the core area of the "origin region of wine at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain", was formerly the main producing area that supplied sand and gravel resources in Yinchuan City.
Due to long-term high-intensity mining, pits with an average depth of 40 meters have been formed on the surface.
Affected by mining, the surrounding vegetation is sparse, sand and gravel are exposed, and the ecological environment is extremely fragile.
In 2008, local enterprises contracted more than 2,000 acres of pit land to build a winery and develop grape cultivation.
At the same time, a leisure park will be built in the mining subsidence area, and an ecological park will be built in the remaining mines.
"From sand mining to grape planting, it is obvious that the ecological benefits have been improved, and the industrial transformation has also brought social benefits. The development of the ecological industry requires a lot of manpower. This vineyard employs more than 2,000 seasonal workers and more than 300 per year. People have brought a great increase in income to the local villagers.” said Ai Hongbing, director of the office of the Ningxia Department of Natural Resources.
From sand and gravel mining areas to wineries, this is a microcosm of the renovation and restoration of the entire Helan Mountain East mining area.
In Ningxia, Helan Mountain is called "Father Mountain".
The Helan Mountain, which runs from north to south, is located on the west side of the Yinchuan Plain. For thousands of years, it has blocked the eastward movement of Tengger sand and Siberian cold current, and has also protected the Yellow River, the "mother river" of Ningxia.
However, since the 1950s, large-scale and disorderly mining activities began on the Helan Mountain due to the rich reserves of coal, silica and other resources.
Under the traditional and extensive development mode of "backing on mountains and eating mountains", Helan Mountain soon became scarred by barbarous development.
"In those days, no one talked about ecological protection, but mainly thinking about how to make full use of resources." Wang Huiming, director of the Ningxia Land Rehabilitation and Restoration Center, said that at its peak, there were more than 100 mining rights on Helan Mountain. There are countless formal small coal kilns.
In November 2016, the Eighth Central Environmental Protection Inspection Group reported to Ningxia that, since 2013, 6 out of 9 national nature reserves in Ningxia have 149 sites for new or continued development activities, 106 of them It is a new point.
Of the 86 mining companies in the Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve, 81 are open-pit mining, destroying surface vegetation, no backfilling of the mine pit, and no ecological restoration of slag piles.
In 2017, under the clarion call of ecological civilization construction, an ecological defense battle officially started in Helan Mountain.
In the Helan Mountain Reserve, 169 remediation sites have fully completed environmental remediation and ecological restoration, 83 mining rights have been withdrawn, and 50 industrial and mining facilities have been demolished.
All open-pit coal mines in Helan Mountain were closed and withdrawn, 543 "scattered and polluted" coal processing enterprises in key areas were shut down and banned, and the basic treatment of 45 points that affected the ecological environment was completed.
Iron fist
At the same time, mining area renovation and ecological restoration are initiated, and there is also the Liupanshan Sanguankou mining area at the southernmost tip of Ningxia.
Sanguankou is located in Liupanshan Town, Jingyuan County, Guyuan City, with 312 National Highway and Baozhong Railway in the south. The proven limestone reserves are 90.85 million tons. It is the main source of construction stones for key projects in surrounding cities and counties and civil construction markets.
Yu Yongquan, deputy director of the Jingyuan County Natural Resources Bureau, remembers that in 2003, when the Sanguankou mining area was adjusted and transferred to Jingyuan County for management, there were 18 stone factories with small production scales and many hidden safety hazards. Private digging and illegal mining occurred from time to time. .
"Since 2013, we have integrated local non-coal mining companies with small production scales and high safety hazards. We shut down and demolished 33 lime kilns and 19 industrial and mining companies in accordance with the law. We launched the name'Green Shield 2017' in the mining area. Before the special rectification action, there were 8 non-coal mine enterprises." Yu Yongquan said.
"Sanguankou mine area has many points, long lines, wide areas, complex conditions, and many difficulties encountered in the remediation." Yu Yongquan recalled that at that time, the local government based on the size of the target, the degree of difficulty, and the availability of licenses. In accordance with the principle of "small first, then big, easy first, difficult first, and no second," the action plan of "one company, one case, one case, one policy, and one thing, one file" was formulated.
Finally, 8 industrial and mining enterprises were demolished in accordance with the law, and 407 acres of stone mining and processing areas were cleared.
During the remediation process, the most troublesome local area was the relocation and demolition of the 50-year-old state-owned Liupanshan Cement Plant and Changzheng Cement Plant in Sanguankou Mine.
The two cement plants are located on the edge of Haodian Village, Liupanshan Town, and both are within 2 kilometers of the ecological red line.
The Changzheng Cement Plant was built in 1969 and designed to produce 250,000 tons of cement annually. In 2002, it was eliminated and shut down due to its backward production capacity, but it has not been demolished.
Liupanshan Cement Plant was built in 1975. After the renovation in 2006, it has an annual output of 800,000 tons of cement and an annual output value of 300 million yuan.
Ji Fengzhou, 40-year-old Party branch secretary of Haodian Village, recalled that as far as he can remember, the local mining, construction stone and cement production has been very vigorous.
"In those years, the crops in the village had a thick layer of ash all the year round. When the wheat was heading, it was covered with dust particles, and the potatoes and other vegetables grown were covered with ash."
Due to the environmental pollution caused by mining and cement production, the local villagers had great opinions. They had negotiated with the cement factory many times, but in the end they had no results.
In November 2019, the Guyuan Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government launched the Liupanshan ecological environment improvement "look back", interviewed the heads of companies shutting down in the Sanguankou mining area, comprehensively checked the remaining problems of the Liupanshan Cement Plant and the Changzheng Cement Plant, and reached a relocation agreement in accordance with the law , A one-time compensation of 43.5 million yuan for the Liupanshan Cement Plant, urged the company to pay 21.13 million yuan for the resettlement of 184 employees, and settled 4 million yuan for the demolition of the Long March Cement Plant.
By the end of 2019, Liupanshan Cement Plant and Changzheng Cement Plant have fully completed the relocation and demolition work.
So far, all industrial and mining enterprises, plant and equipment in Jingyuan County have been cleared.
"After the ecological treatment, the cement factory was moved away, mining stopped, the mines were planted with evergreen trees, and even the previously muddy rivers were cleared." Ji Fengzhou said.
The difficulty of repair
More difficult than remediation is repair.
In 2016, after the eighth central environmental protection inspection team reported that the ecological damage of the Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve was prominent, the local area immediately initiated the comprehensive environmental improvement work in the reserve.
As a member of technical guidance experts, Wu Xuehua, a senior engineer of Ningxia Land and Resources Survey and Monitoring Institute, once accompanied the working group to the mining area for on-site surveys.
It is not easy to restore the battered Helan Mountain to its former appearance.
The first thing to do is to backfill the pit and dispose of the slag pile.
In this restoration process, the most critical issue is to eliminate hidden dangers of geological disasters.
“The pits formed by open-pit mining in coal mines, the slag accumulated in the trenches, and the steep slopes formed by cutting slopes are very easy to collapse or landslide. In the event of a heavy rainstorm, it may also trigger mudslides, which will affect the lives of villages and towns at the foot of Helan Mountain. Crop and farmland will pose a threat." Wu Xuehua said.
Therefore, both pit backfilling and slope cutting have strict technical requirements.
"For example, filling a pit is not completely leveled. It should be considered according to the surrounding geographic environment of the pit; cutting slopes should be cut into steps, like terraces. The height of the steps should not be greater than 10 meters, and the slope of the side slope should be less than 35°. Erosion may cause collapse." He explained.
In the northwest mountainous area with arid climate and sparse rainfall like Helan Mountain, the most difficult thing is vegetation restoration.
"In the Helan Mountain area, the annual precipitation is about 200 mm, and the evaporation is about 2000 mm. The evaporation is 10 times that of the precipitation. It is difficult to meet the water needed for plant growth." Wu Xuehua recalled, simply choosing suitable grass for vegetation restoration in the mining area It took a lot of thought to plant it.
The grass seeds used for vegetation restoration must be drought-tolerant and tenacious.
"At that time, one of our choices was Artemisia sphaerocephala. This grass is drought-tolerant and sand-fixing. It is planted in the northwest region and has a better effect on vegetation restoration. However, many people are allergic to Artemisia sphaerocarpa, which may cause frequent rhinitis and affect nearby areas. Residents’ lives, in the end, they still feel that they can’t be multiple.”
Wu Xuehua remembered that some experts proposed to plant Helan Mountain's own varieties to prevent possible pests and diseases caused by the planting of exotic species and damage the vegetation of Helan Mountain itself.
In the end, the restoration selected a variety of grass seeds mixed sowing.
The ensuing problem is how to keep the grass seeds alive.
"A lot of the ground that needs to be restored is the stones and coal gangue left by the slag. Grass seeds are scattered on it. Even if it rains, they can't take root. The wind disappears. So we asked to cover the soil first so that the plants can germinate. "
In the Sanguankou mining area of Liupan Mountain, the method of hanging net spraying was used for vegetation restoration for the first time.
Wu Xuehua explained that the Liupan Mountain area where Sanguankou is located has more precipitation than Helan Mountain.
In order to allow the grass seeds to stay on the surface, in the Sanguankou mining area, repairers mixed alfalfa, red bean grass, caragana, sea buckthorn, elm, acacia and other forest and grass seeds into the soil and hung on the net, and then fixed it on the hillside and hung the net. The spraying area is 270,000 square meters, covering more than 80% of the cliff surface.
From tough battle to protracted battle
Ecological restoration is not only a tough battle, but also a protracted battle.
In Wu Xuehua's view, the ecological and environmental benefits of Helan Mountain and Liupan Mountain are still obvious after vigorous improvement and scientific restoration.
"The landscape has been restored, the plants and animals in the reserve can survive, the surrounding environment has been improved, and the groundwater environment has also improved."
"Ecological restoration cannot be completed in two strokes. For example, the grass seeds that were sown in the previous year cannot survive a cold winter. In the second year, we will continue to sow and maintain them carefully." He also frankly said. It may take longer to see the effects of ecological restoration in mining areas.
After three years of renovation and restoration, at the end of September this year, special plans for ecological protection and restoration of Helan Mountain, Liupan Mountain, and Luoshan were officially released, with a planning period of 5 years.
The plan proposes that by 2025, the vegetation coverage of the Helan Mountain National Nature Reserve will be increased to more than 65%, and the management rate of historical mines will reach 100%; the forest coverage rate of the Liupanshan Nature Reserve will be increased to 63.4%, and the mine geological environment and land Comprehensive improvement of 7,420 hectares.
Ai Hongbing introduced that the innovation of the "Three Mountains" special plan is to divide the scope of protection and restoration into protected areas, ecologically related areas, and ecological extension areas in accordance with the ecological functions and relevance of the Helan Mountain, Liupan Mountain, and Luoshan Mountain. In each circle, the layout is based on the outstanding issues and natural geographical features of different regions.
In the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Natural Resources issued in June this year, the "National Important Ecosystem Protection and Restoration Major Projects (2021-2035)", the ecological protection and restoration of Helan Mountain is a major ecological protection and restoration project in the Yellow River key ecological area. one.
This national master plan also pointed out that in the ecological protection and restoration in many areas, there are still problems such as insufficient ecological protection and restoration system, insufficient market input mechanism, and lack of effective ways to realize the value of ecological products.
"Ecological protection and restoration is not an antagonistic relationship with economic development." Ai Hongbing believes that the ecological protection and restoration of the "Three Mountains" is linked to the transformation of Ningxia's economic structure and development momentum.
When it comes to future development, Ji Fengzhou is also full of confidence.
"Haodian Village is an ancient village. There were stories of the Red Revolution in the early and post-liberation period. It is also close to the Liupan Mountain Red Army Long March scenic spot. Now the ecological environment is also well managed."
He said that in the past, the main source of income for villagers was tree planting, breeding and labor.
"In the next step, we intend to engage in global eco-tourism."
Beijing News reporter Wu Jiaoying