Three hundred years of spontaneous combustion of coal seams, ecological restoration of Helan Mountain "adds difficulties"
Reporter Yu Yao, Liu Hai
The majestic and beautiful Helan Mountain is known as the "Father Mountain" of Ningxia. It traverses the northern part of Ningxia and blocks the encroachment of the Tengger Desert, the fourth largest desert in China. Therefore, it has become a fertile river with thousands of miles and fragrant rice flowers. Created a rich and beautiful "Shangjiangnan".
Helan Mountain is not only an important ecological barrier in Northwest my country, but also a treasure mountain rich in minerals.
Since the third-line construction in the 1950s, the rich coal and silica resources of Helan Mountain have been excavated one after another, and a new type of industrial city-Shizuishan has emerged under the Helan Mountain.
Decades of digging for coal and mining have continuously released resource "dividends", which has also scarred Helan Mountain.
Starting the ecological defense battle of Helan Mountain, strong men broke their wrists and attacked with heavy fists. It is imperative to remediate Helan Mountain with iron fists.
With nearly tens of billions of funds invested, after more than three years of remediation, the barren mountains and bald ridges are re-emerged with greenery, the noisy valleys are silent, and the peace of the past is gradually restored.
However, repairing the complex ecosystem of Helan Mountain is not an overnight effort. Although Helan Mountain no longer "cries" due to man-made destruction, the spontaneous combustion of underground coal seams continues to spread, not only releasing harmful gases and destroying the land, but also endangering animals and plants.
To comprehensively improve the effectiveness of Helan Mountain’s ecological management and restoration, in addition to planting afforestation, withdrawing from mining enterprises, and eliminating illegal human activities, it is also necessary to perform a comprehensive physical examination on the Helan Mountain and implement a “minimally invasive surgery” to eliminate the “spontaneous combustion” damage that plagues Helan Mountain. The ecological barrier of Helan Mountain is strong and strong.
Heals scars
Helan Mountain is located at the junction of Ningxia and Mongolia, facing the Yinchuan Plain in the east, overlooking the Yellow River Hetao and the Ordos Plateau. It is about 220 kilometers long from north to south and 20-40 kilometers wide from east to west.
It is an important natural geographical dividing line in my country. It is the dividing line between 200mm isotherm, arid and semi-arid, livestock and agricultural areas, inflow and outflow, forest vegetation and grassland vegetation, and links the national climate pattern. Stabilized the monsoon boundary.
Helan Mountain is rich in mineral resources such as coal and silica. At the same time, the total area of forest resources is 27,600 hectares. There are unique plants in the Gobi desert area of my country and even the entire Asian desert area. The ecological resources of the nature reserve are very precious.
However, while the rich mineral resources contained in Helan Mountain continue to release resource "dividends" for people and support the continuous growth of the local industrial economy, they are also experiencing unavoidable man-made destruction.
Over the past century, open-mouthed mining has left Helan Mountain devastated and scarred. At the foot of the mountain, hundreds of small, scattered and polluted coal washing and processing enterprises, relying on the mountain and sacrificing the environment, Helan Mountain is "cry".
You can be reborn if you hurt your muscles and bones.
Since 2017, the Ningxia Party Committee and the government have resolutely implemented the requirements of the Party Central Committee to implement the comprehensive improvement of the Helan Mountain’s ecological environment in response to the serious ecological damage, multiple sites, wide areas, ecological fragility, and difficult governance of Helan Mountain. The intensity is unprecedented.
“We insist on protecting the Helan Mountain as a whole, and implementing precise measures step by step to implement integrated management within and outside the protected area.” said Cui Qipeng, director of the Land and Space Ecological Rehabilitation Division of the Natural Resources Department of the Autonomous Region. The first step is to carry out comprehensive environmental improvement in the protected area. On the basis of consolidating and improving the improvement results, the second step focuses on the comprehensive improvement of the peripheral ecological environment.
Since the start of the Helan Mountain ecological "defense war", Ningxia has identified a total of 169 remediation points in the reserve and completed comprehensive treatment. 83 mining rights and 50 industrial and mining facilities have all been withdrawn and demolished.
All open-pit coal mines in the periphery were closed, and 656 "scattered and polluted" coal processing enterprises in key areas were shut down and banned, upgraded and renovated, and all 45 sites that seriously affected the ecological environment have also completed basic treatment.
The Shizuishan section is a key area for environmental improvement in the Helan Mountain. In the past, the disorderly mining of coal caused Helan Mountain to be riddled with holes. Some peaks became 100-meter-deep ravines. The stripped slag piled up into mountains. Hundreds of washed coals once gathered in the main channel. The environment of factories and coal storage yards is very harsh.
"We have completed the treatment of an area of 146 square kilometers. The ecological protection of Helan Mountain has formed a pattern of integration of points, lines and areas. Coal mines and non-coal mine enterprises in the protected area have all closed and withdrawn, and all illegal human activities have been completely stopped. The situation of “chaos, chaos, and poor” has been fundamentally reversed.” said Zhang Jianhua, director of the Shizuishan Helanshan Cleanup and Rectification Headquarters Office.
In the past three years, Ningxia has invested a total of nearly 10 billion yuan in various types of funds, covering an area of 200 square kilometers for treatment and restoration, and the ecological environment of Helan Mountain has been significantly improved.
The overwhelmed mountain had a chance to breathe, and the guarding action from top to bottom gradually dissipated the "tears" of Helan Mountain.
Nowadays, Helan Mountain has high sky and clear clouds. Green has become the most beautiful background. The forest coverage of the reserve is growing rapidly, the number of wild animals is expanding, and the biodiversity is showing a significant growth trend.
Spontaneous combustion disaster
Helan Mountain is an important natural geographic boundary in my country and an important ecological security barrier in the northwest. It maintains the climate distribution and ecological pattern in the region from Northwest to Huanghuai and protects the ecological security of Northwest and North China.
It is necessary to strengthen the top-level design, pay close attention to the implementation of responsibilities, strengthen supervision and inspection, and resolutely protect the ecology of Helan Mountain.
This is the central government's entrustment to Ningxia.
At present, Ningxia is coordinating and promoting the ecological protection and restoration of Helan Mountain, from the outside to the inside, from shallow to deep, and systematically improving its ecological functions.
However, while achieving a series of gratifying achievements, there are still many chronic diseases that threaten the health of Helan Mountain.
In particular, the spontaneous combustion of coal seams is quite tricky in the process of deep ecological restoration of Helan Mountain.
Spontaneous combustion of coal seams is an objective phenomenon, which is often accompanied by coal mining.
The Rujigou mining area, located in the hinterland of the middle section of Helan Mountain in northern Ningxia, is the main concentration area of spontaneous combustion of coal seams in the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve and the surrounding areas. The mining area involves Rujigou, Big Stone, Dafeng, Hongliangjing, Baijigou and There are 6 coal mines in Kabulang Well.
According to relevant records, coal seams in the Rujigou mining area have been spontaneously ignited for more than 300 years. The cause of the fire is mostly due to the workers in the underground heating or the fire on the ground when the small kilns were mined in the past.
The fire area is spreading and burning along the outcrop to the deep part. The larger the number of small coal mine openings and the larger the scope of the goaf, the larger the burning area of the fire area.
Especially in the 1990s, due to the indiscriminate mining of small and medium-sized coal mines in the Helan Mountain area, the old fire areas intensified and spread rapidly, and new fire areas continued to emerge.
Today, within 28 square kilometers of the Rujigou mining area, there are sporadicly distributed 25 fire areas formed by spontaneous combustion of coal seams, of which 5 are within the scope of a nature reserve.
The total area affected by the fire has exceeded 3.3 square kilometers, the deepest is 280 meters, and it spreads to the surrounding at a rate of 14 to 16 meters per year.
After treatment, five fire areas have been basically extinguished, but most of the remaining fire areas are distributed in the deep coal seams of high mountain cliffs, and they are still burning and spreading to varying degrees.
The Rujigou mining area is rich in "Taixi anthracite". This rare coal is known as the "king of coal" and "Taixi Wujin" because of its low ash, low sulfur, high calorific value and other "three low and six high" characteristics.
According to the Rujigou Anthracite Branch of Guoneng Ningxia Coal Group, the proven reserves of Taixi coal in the entire mining area are 580 million tons, and there are about 270 million tons remaining, of which the resource reserves affected by the fire area are more than 67 million tons.
The resource reserves within the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve account for 15% of the total reserves of the entire mining area, and the fire area accounts for about 11% of the total fire area.
The reporter learned that the spontaneous combustion of coal seams in the Rujigou mining area has two characteristics: First, because there were as many as 140 small coal kilns in the past, and the regular mining of mine workers has been more than 50 years, the abandoned roadways and mined-out areas left over from the mining area provide the fire area. A good air leakage and oxygen supply channel.
Second, Taixi coal has the characteristics of high chemical activity and high gas content. There is no possibility of natural extinguishment after the coal seam catches fire. Moreover, due to the high degree of metamorphism and high gas content of Taixi coal, not only the coal is burning, but also a large amount of coal. Gas gushing also participates in the combustion, speeding up the burning speed of the fire area.
Man-made destruction is contained, and natural destruction cannot be ignored.
As early as 2019, the Development and Reform Commission of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region commissioned Xi'an University of Science and Technology to compile the "Rujigou Mine Fire Control Plan (Draft for Review)". The plan pointed out that the fire spread has become the most serious disaster in the mining area.
Walk into the fire zone
The Rujigou mining area is mainly composed of five pairs of mines, including the Rujigou Coal Mine and the Baijigou Coal Mine under the National Energy Group Ningxia Coal Industry Co., Ltd., with a total production capacity of 4.6 million tons per year.
At present, only the Baijigou coal mine is in normal production, with an annual production capacity of 1.6 million tons, and the remaining coal mines have all been suspended in accordance with the rectification requirements of the central environmental protection inspection feedback.
Recently, the reporter entered the Rujigou mining area for field interviews, drove into the mountain from the Shiyin highway intersection, hovered on the mountain road for more than 40 minutes, and arrived at the largest fire area in the Rujigou mining area-the fern mining area of the Dafeng Mine.
Looking around, some hills have been burnt down, and the surface of the mountain has changed from the original blue-gray to reddish brown. A 130-meter-high mountain in front of me is like the Danxia landform.
"We are now at the main mining face of the fern mining area. It is the second coal of Taixi Coal and the thickest coal seam. According to preliminary estimates, 350,000 tons of Taixi coal have been burned here. It is spreading along the coal seam and deep into the depths.” said Wang Xuezhi, head of the production technology section of the Rujigou Anthracite Branch of the National Energy Group Ningmei Company.
The characteristic of Taixi Coal is that the smoke is often not seen when it is burning, but under the sunlight, the reporter can clearly see the flickering heat waves around the mountain.
In order to check the spontaneous combustion of coal at a close distance, the reporter went to an open flame in the large stone fire area. As soon as I got out of the car, my feet felt hot.
As we walked to the foot of the mountain, the hot air became more obvious. Looking in from the cracks in the rocks, the inside of the mountain was burning like the furnace of a boiler.
According to local people, it is not obvious during the day, and the whole mountain is red in the evening.
Especially in heavy rain, the open flame area is like in the sea of clouds, mountains and fog. "In fact, the repairs on the surface are very good, but the underground and the mountains are still burning."
Affected by the interweaving of multiple factors, the fire area in the Rujigou mining area is still in an active period, and the scope of spreading to the surrounding area is increasing.
Not only that, the Erdaoling fire area in the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve is gradually expanding, and it is connected to the Erdaoling fire area in Alxa Left Banner, Inner Mongolia.
Some grassroots cadres and business leaders in Shizuishan City said frankly that the fire in the fire area is advancing in depth. In addition, the burning area is relatively large and the distribution range is relatively wide. Therefore, it is very difficult to control the fire area that has been extinguished in the past. It may also reignite.
Multiple hazards
According to relevant sources, the development and changes of 25 fire areas in the Rujigou mining area can be divided into three categories: one is basically 5 fire extinguishing areas; second, there are 4 fire areas where the temperature is abnormal and the suspected fire area has not been completely extinguished; the third is Fire areas are being developed, and 16 fire areas must be managed through engineering and technical measures.
Today, the burning of the fire area has damaged the ecological environment and natural resources of Helan Mountain, and endangered the health of local residents.
One is the emission of large-scale harmful gases.
In March 2020, the Autonomous Region Ecological Environment Monitoring Center carried out on-site atmospheric environment monitoring in the spontaneous combustion area of the Rujigou mining area and found that coal seams released a large amount of smoke during the combustion process, and the smoke contained harmful gases such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon monoxide. , Is the main cause of the increase in PM2.5 in the mining area, and endangers the environment of the mining area and the health of residents.
The data shows that the annual emissions of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide alone in the fire zone amount to 12,900 tons and 5,324 tons, which is equivalent to 269 times and 24 times the emissions of a medium-sized thermal power plant.
"The emission concentrations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, PM10, and PM2.5 respectively accounted for 3.12%, 1.39%, 1.91% and 4.39% of the average concentration of Shizuishan City in 2019, indicating that the spontaneous combustion of the fire area has an excessive impact on the local air." Said Yang Xianliang, director of the Law Enforcement Supervision Bureau of the Autonomous Region Ecological Environment Department.
The second is the destruction of land resources in mining areas.
The burning of coal seams caused geological disasters such as mountain cracks and subsidence. After the fire, the soil lost nutrients and became loose, which intensified land desertification and soil erosion, and seriously affected vegetation restoration.
At present, the area of land damaged by the fire area is about 332 hectares. Estimated at an average annual expansion rate of 10 meters, the area of land damaged in Rujigou is estimated to reach 16 hectares each year.
"The high temperature on the ground changes the nature of the soil, which will lead to land impoverishment, causing large areas of vegetation to wither and die." A grassroots cadre in Shizuishan City said frankly that the Helan Mountain is in urgent need of ecological restoration. If the overfire area increases, nothing can be planted in the soil. .
The third is to endanger wild animals in the reserve.
At present, the Rujigou fire area has been connected to the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve.
The harmful gases pervading the fire area are harmful to the animals and plants in the reserve. The burning of the fire area has also caused some damage to the biological corridors of the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve. The migration of wild animals has also been affected to a certain extent. The biome causes damage.
The fourth is the loss of a large amount of rare Taixi coal.
The "king of coal" Taixi coal is mainly used in metallurgy, chemical and other industries. According to estimates, the fire area burns about 1.15 million tons of Taixi coal each year, and the direct economic loss is about 1 billion yuan.
According to the current fire development forecast, 50 years later, the Taixi coal retained in the Rujigou mining area may be burned out.
Local multi-departmental and relevant experts believe that these 25 fire areas have a strong destructive effect on Helan Mountain. We should brainstorm and comprehensively implement measures to block pollution sources as soon as possible, and fundamentally solve the environmental pollution and resource damage caused by coal spontaneous combustion.
Fundamental solution
Fire area management has now become a difficult point in the comprehensive improvement of the ecological environment surrounding the Helan Mountain Nature Reserve.
However, as an important part of the restoration of the ecological environment, the disturbance to the ecologically sensitive area of Helan Mountain must be eliminated to the maximum extent by the fire area and its management work.
The "Rujigou Mine Fire Area Management Plan (Draft for Review)" pointed out that in accordance with the principle of “stripping if stripping is appropriate, filling if it is appropriate, and combining stripping and injection”, it comprehensively considers the current situation of the fire area, technology, and economic factors It is necessary to adopt specific and applicable fire-fighting technologies to organize and implement it. It is recommended to adopt the fire-fighting technologies of "grouting and grouting" and "peeling + grouting and grouting" for treatment.
Among them, 9 fire areas within the Baijigou coal mine field and 5 fire areas within the Helan Mountain protection area must be extinguished by grouting technology, while 6 fire areas including the middle channel fire area and the fern fire area are due to energy accumulation The characteristics of large air leakage and sufficient oxygen supply, large coal seam inclination, and large-area open fire have severely restricted the application of traditional grouting filling technology. The shallow fire area should be extinguished by "stripping + grouting".
However, the divestiture proposed in this treatment plan means continued coal mining.
The comprehensive improvement of the Helan Mountain ecological environment is continuing, and the nature reserve has been completely banned. At this time, it was proposed to control the fire area by stripping, and the local cadres had concerns.
It is understood that in the 1990s, a fire-fighting project was implemented in the Rujigou mining area. It was planned to completely dig out the burning coal. However, due to inadequate supervision, some people used the banner of fire-fighting projects and illegal mining. Related leading cadres have also been dealt with seriously.
In view of this, many interviewed cadres were concerned when they talked about the fire area management. The comprehensive improvement of the ecological environment of Helan Mountain is continuing to advance. Now if the fire area is controlled by the method of stripping, it will be impossible to report to the The central government and the people explained.
The reporter learned from the Development and Reform Commission of the Autonomous Region that the "Rujigou Mine Fire Area Management Plan (Draft for Review)" compiled in 2019 has not been passed and implemented.
In the near future, in order to improve the governance plan, Ningxia invited experts from China International Engineering Consulting Corporation to visit the Rujigou mining area, hoping that the experts will provide opinions and demonstrate the governance plan.
Local multi-department leaders and related experts believe that although the spontaneous combustion of coal seams in the Rujigou mining area is a historical problem, it has a greater impact on the ecological protection effect of Helan Mountain, which has invested huge amounts of money. The relevant state departments and Ningxia should make timely decisions and comprehensively implement policies. Eliminate the impact of the fire area and its treatment on the ecologically sensitive area of Helan Mountain, and fundamentally solve the pollution problem caused by coal spontaneous combustion.
Helan Mountain is waiting.