Chinanews.com, May 6, according to the WeChat official account of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in April 2021, the Seventh Central Ecological Environmental Protection Supervision Team conducted an inspection of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and found that Cenxi City, Wuzhou City was not doing enough to promote the central ecological environmental protection inspection. There is a lack of overall planning for the comprehensive improvement of granite mines, the creation of green mines is a mere formality, the environmental improvement and restoration of closed mines is seriously lagging behind, extensive mining problems are prominent, random dumping of spoils, rocks, sand washing and waste mud are common, and the mining area and surrounding areas are sunny. The dust was overwhelming, the muddy water flowed across the rainy day, the ecological damage and environmental pollution were serious, and the masses responded strongly.

  The news pointed out that the second round of the third batch of the central ecological and environmental protection inspection team went deep into the front line and on-site, and verified a number of prominent ecological and environmental problems, verified a number of inactions, slow actions, unaccountable, uncompromising, and even perfunctory responses. , Falsification and other formalism and bureaucracy issues.

In order to play a warning role and effectively promote the rectification of problems, the inspection team conducted a centralized public notification of the fourth batch of 8 typical cases.

  Among them, the extensive mining of granite mines in Cenxi City, Guangxi has caused serious ecological damage.

The details of this typical case are as follows:

basic situation

  Cenxi City, Wuzhou is one of the largest granite production bases in the country, with a history of granite mining for more than 30 years.

The city's proven granite reserves are approximately 2.1 billion cubic meters, with a total of 31 mines, including 16 small mines.

The total area of ​​the mining area is 4.98 square kilometers, and the annual production scale is 1.1815 million cubic meters.

  The first round of Central Ecological Environmental Protection Inspectors pointed out that the problems of dust, waste water pollution and ecological damage generated by Guangxi quarrying and other industries are serious, and the masses have expressed strong feedback, and specifically pointed out the outstanding problems of quarrying enterprises in Cenxi City.

In 2017, the "Central Environmental Protection Inspector Feedback Wuzhou Rectification Plan" formulated by Wuzhou City clearly requires that Cenxi City's granite mine and other mineral resource mining enterprises be organized to carry out rectification.

Cenxi City’s "Cenxi City Environmental Protection Inspector Feedback Cenxi City Rectification Plan" clearly stated that the preparation of the comprehensive mine environment management implementation plan and the tailing pond waste slag cleaning and rectification work will be completed by the end of 2018, and the destroyed ecological environment of the mine will be restored by the end of 2020.

The inspector found that the ecological and environmental problems of the granite mine in Cenxi City are still prominent, and complaints from the masses continue.

main problem

——Extensive mining, serious ecological damage

  Of the 31 granite mines in Cenxi City, 20 of them did not strictly follow the mining design for stepwise mining. Long-term savage mining. The mines were "opened and broken" without layering and vertical stripping. The vertical drop of some mining surfaces even reached hundreds of meters, resulting in mountain masses. Serious damage, serious ecological damage, great difficulty in reclamation, and prominent hidden dangers of safety and geological disasters.

It was not until July 2019 that Cenxi City organized the investigation and remediation after a mountain collapse occurred in the Hekou Granite Mine of Cenxi Tianma Stone Industry Co., Ltd.

The granite mine of Cenxi Kangli Stone Co., Ltd. adopts the "one wall" method of mining.

Image source: WeChat official account of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment

  The utilization rate of granite ore bodies in Cenxi City is only about 20%, and about 80% becomes waste soil and waste rock.

The inspection team spot-checked 9 existing mines. Only one set up a spoil and rock yard according to the specifications. The others dumped the waste soil and rock directly from the mining area, causing large-scale ecological damage outside the mining area, and a large amount of vegetation destroyed. Effective dust suppression and water and soil conservation measures have not been taken, dust is flying, and soil erosion has seriously affected the production and life of surrounding people.

In addition, for more than 30 years in Cenxi City, the total amount of waste soil and rocks generated in history has reached more than 100 million tons, most of which are randomly discarded along mountains, valleys and other areas, affecting the surrounding ecological environment.

In recent years, although Cenxi City has promoted the comprehensive utilization of mine solid waste, it lacks effective supervision.

Some mine solid waste comprehensive utilization companies dump sand washing waste mud directly along the mountain, causing new environmental pollution and potential safety hazards.

Cenxi City Nuodong Dafu Granite Mine, mining waste soil and waste rocks dumped along the mountain at random.

Image source: WeChat official account of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment

——Relax the standards, the creation of green mines is just a formality

  In March 2019, Cenxi City issued "Notice on Accelerating the Construction of Green Mines" and other documents, proposing that by 2020 all mines will meet the green mine construction standards, but as of the end of 2020, only 10 of the 31 granite mines have completed the construction of green mines .

Inspectors randomly inspected two of them on site and found that the so-called "green mines" did not even meet the most basic mining specifications and ecological and environmental protection requirements.

  The Nuodong Dafu Granite Mine in Cenxi City was approved as a municipal-level green mine in Wuzhou City in September 2020, with an assessment score of 84. The on-site verification by the inspection team is quite different from the assessment situation in Wuzhou City.

The assessment opinion pointed out that the mine greening rate was over 85%, and the on-site verification greening rate was less than 20%; the assessment opinion pointed out that the wastewater was recycled after treatment, and the on-site verification found that the ground sewage flowed across the ground, and the sewage treatment facilities were in vain, forming a "milk pond" in the downstream of the mine.

The Sanbao Tianjingchong Granite Mine of Cenxi Sanbao Hongda Stone Co., Ltd. was approved as a municipal-level green mine in Wuzhou in August 2020, with an assessment score of 90. The assessment opinion pointed out that the mining area and the surrounding natural environment were effectively protected, and it was discovered on site. The waste soil and residue are dumped directly into the valley, causing serious damage to the ecological environment.

In September 2020, the Nuodong Dafu Granite Mine in Cenxi City, which was approved as a municipal green mine in Wuzhou City, has a green mine assessment opinion of over 85%, but the on-site verification greening rate is less than 20%.

Image source: WeChat official account of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment

-Lack of overall planning, rectification work is superficial

  Although both Wuzhou City and Cenxi City put forward rectification requirements for the granite mine in Cenxi City in the rectification plan in 2017, the comprehensive renovation lacked overall planning and deployment, and there was a fear of solving historical problems, and the overall implementation of related measures was slow.

The integration of mining enterprises is weak, and there are 6 mines that are below the minimum mining scale of small mines required by the plan.

The environmental governance and restoration of closed mines were not promoted effectively, and none of the 11 closed mines in the city carried out environmental governance and restoration work.

Among the 9 mines in production in 2020, 7 are over-exploited, and 3 of them are actually mined more than double the designed scale.

  In September 2019, the Emergency Management Department of the Autonomous Region requested to strengthen the rectification of "one wall" illegal mining behavior in quarries, but Wuzhou and Cenxi City did not provide sufficient overall guidance for related rectification work, and their supervision and management were ineffective.

In the process of rectification, some companies have lost sight of one another, and new ecological damage problems have arisen in order to solve the safety problem as soon as possible.

Cenxi Yongyu Stone Industry Co., Ltd. Yongyu Granite Mine, in order to reduce the vertical surface height, illegally occupied forest land three times for slope construction in 2020 alone. The waste soil generated by the slope construction was directly dumped and soil erosion was serious.

Cause Analysis

  The news pointed out that the Wuzhou Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government did not pay enough attention to the rectification and reform of the central ecological and environmental protection inspectors, lacked responsibility for the promotion of the rectification of the stone industry, the main responsibility for rectification was shifted downward, and supervision and guidance were absent.

The Cenxi Municipal Party Committee and the municipal government did not pay enough attention to the comprehensive renovation of granite mines, the integration of mine resources was insufficient, the restoration of closed-pit mine environment was not promoted, and the creation of green mines was just a formality.

  The inspection team will further investigate and verify the situation, and do a good job of follow-up inspections as required.