Environmental Legislation, Assessment, Licensing

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Re: Prescribed Norms/Standards For Management of Protected A

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GroundUp: Mpumalanga environmental crisis – why is nobody listening?GroundUp
GroundUpSouth Africa15 Sep 2014 09:31 (South Africa)
Share on twitterShare on facebookShare on emailShare on google_plusone_shareShare on linkedinA desperate battle is raging across vast tracts of Mpumalanga between coal mining on the one hand and water preservation, food security and tourism on the other, says TRACEY DAVIES for GROUND UP.

(Tracey Davies works for the Centre for Environmental Rights.)

For at least the last five years scientists, academics, conservation organisations, tourism authorities and NGOs have been issuing dire warnings about the largely unregulated rampant spread of coal mining in Mpumalanga, and the devastating impacts that this is having on South Africa’s food and water security. Year after year, the problem gets worse. More reports are issued. Nothing changes. Why is nobody listening?

In November 2011, WWF-SA released its Coal and Water Futures in South Africa report, detailing the rapid degradation of the critical Olifants river catchment as a result of coal mining. WWF warned that prospecting and mining rights for coal were "being issued in some of our most precious and sensitive catchments", and that "no government department is currently assessing the predictable cumulative impacts of mining in sensitive areas". The report listed a series of actions necessary to stem the tide of destruction, not one of which has been implemented.

In October 2012, the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy released a pilot study on the impact of coal mining on agriculture. Some 46% of South Africa’s total high potential arable soils are found in Mpumalanga, and the study found that "at the current rate of coal mining ... approximately 12% of South Africa’s total high potential arable land will be transformed". A further 14% of that arable land was subject to coal prospecting applications. The study assessed the impacts of this transformation, ranging from the loss of maize production and resulting price increases to the loss of employment, soil degradation, water and air pollution and health impacts. It concluded that "the effects of coal mining on agriculture are immense and some effects are irreversible."



Photo: Open cast coal mine in Mpumalanga. (Tracey Davies)

In August 2014 the Bench Marks Foundation released its Policy Gap 9 report on South African coal mining. This report contains an exhaustive analysis of the problems created by the extraordinary concentration of coal mines in Mpumalanga: the awful living conditions of mine-affected communities and the lamentable failure of mining companies to meaningfully or positively engage with them; the devastating impact of coal mining on previously arable land; the impact of air, water and soil pollution on farming activities and human health; mining companies' poor compliance with legal and regulatory requirements for environmental protection; the almost total lack of compliance monitoring and enforcement by the Department of Mineral Resources; and the "extremely cavalier attitude [of the South African mining industry] towards the closure of mines and the rehabilitation of the environment."

These reports contain terrifying statistics and dire warnings about the consequences of doing nothing to stop this impending crisis. But very few people seem to be listening, and even fewer seem to care. But what happens in Mpumalanga will have consequences far beyond the boundaries of just this province. And the same patterns are being repeated elsewhere, in particular at the moment across vast areas of Limpopo. Unless we want the dominant South African landscape to resemble the coal-blackened environs of Emalahleni in decades to come, something needs to change.



Photo: Mpumalanga Tourism & Parks Agency Land Use Applications. Taking into account overlaps, mining and prospecting rights and rights applications cover 61% of Mpumalanga’s land area.

Recently I was privileged to be taken on a flyover of central Mpumalanga by Bateleurs pilot Karl Jensen. The two-hour flight covered the area boundaried by Kriel, Hendrina and Carolina to the south, and Belfast, Middelburg and Emalahleni to the North. As a mining-focussed environmental lawyer I thought I had a fairly good grasp of the situation in Mpumalanga. But I was flabbergasted at the extent to which coal mining has transformed vast swathes of the landscape.

The scale of the devastation is staggering. For almost the entire duration of the flight, we flew over a coal mine every couple of minutes, each a vast acreage of mutilation: enormous pits gouged out of the earth, acre upon acre of topsoil and overburden piled into lifeless mounds, streams and rivers diverted, and poisonous water pooling at the bottom of abandoned pits.

All coal mining licences contain conditions requiring so-called "concurrent rehabilitation" – it is crystal clear from the air that this is not happening. Also evident from the air is the army of coal trucks that crawl across the province, kicking clouds of black dust into the air. Another impact of coal mining here is the huge number of road accidents involving coal transportation trucks, leading Eskom in October last year to ban the trucking of coal in Mpumalanga over weekends.

Coal mining will never be clean. Nor will coal-fired power stations (there are 12 of them within an hour’s drive or less of Emalahleni). Both are a necessary evil in South Africa for the time being. But there are ways to regulate coal mining to prevent it from causing such extensive, widespread and irreversible damage to our fresh water resources, most precious arable land and critical biodiversity areas. At the moment, the kind of coordinated government action that is needed to achieve this is completely absent.



Photo: Unrehabilitated coal pit. (Tracey Davies)

Despite a constitutionally mandated principle of cooperative governance, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) reigns supreme in Mpumalanga, granting prospecting and mining rights even in the face of vehement opposition from other organs of state like conservation and tourism authorities. In South Africa’s bizarre mining-environment regulatory regime, the DMR is also responsible for policing the environmental impacts of mining. It is failing dismally at this task. The Departments of Environmental and Water Affairs, and local and district municipalities, which all have an integral role to play in regulation that effectively balances the province’s different priorities, are either unwilling or incapable of making a dent in this onslaught.

The Minister of Mineral Resources has the power to declare "no go" areas for mining, but has so far refused to do so. Countless organisations have called on government, time and again, to undertake an assessment of the cumulative impacts of mining on water resources, arable farmland and tourism potential, and that relevant government departments agree to restrict mining in areas which contain critical water sources and biodiversity, or which are important for South Africa’s future food security. Nothing happens.

The rapid spread of coal mining and its associated environmental and social impacts is dramatically altering the economy of the province. Those who object to a prospecting or mining right application in this region are often accused by the DMR of wanting to "sterilise" minerals, with the associated implication that those who care about protecting our environment do not care about jobs or growth. The silliness of this aside, there is a different kind of sterilisation going on in Mpumalanga. Huge areas of land which have for generations created stable, long-term jobs in farming are being permanently sterilised. Even with the best post-coal mining rehabilitation (a rare occurrence in South Africa), land that has supported coal mining operations cannot ever again be used to grow crops.

Tourism potential is also being "sterilised" by the onslaught of coal mining. The Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks agency (an organ of state) spends a ridiculous chunk of its time and (our) resources objecting to mining and prospecting rights in areas important for their biodiversity, water resource and tourism value – objections which the Department of Mineral Resources inevitably ignores. Private tourism projects are a risky business; anyone can apply to prospect or mine on your property, and if the spectre of coal mining on your land or that of your neighbour looms ever large, why invest in the future?

Coal mining companies predictably argue that they are better job creators than agriculture and tourism, but even the biggest mines employ surprisingly few people full-time. Many of the new coal mining projects are short-term, with life-of-mine projections of between three and five years, and maximum employee numbers of less than 100 people.

South Africans have been browbeaten into an unquestioning acceptance of the untouchability of the mining industry. Those who attempt to challenge or raise questions about any aspect of the way that mining takes place in this country are either ignored or accused of being "anti-growth", "anti-jobs" or just generally not smart enough to understand the economics. Until more of us start to question this dominance, and the sacrifices we are making because of it, and to insist on better planning of mining, better protection of the scarce resources that mining permanently destroys, and better compliance monitoring and enforcement by the Department of Mineral Resources, mining companies will continue to ride roughshod over our future, and mining will continue to trump our rights to clean water, food and an environment not harmful to our health and well-being. DM
Main photo: SPOT5 satellite imagery (2013) of open cast coal operations in Mpumalanga and encroachment on surrounding farmland.


Heh,.. H.e
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Re: Prescribed Norms/Standards For Management of Protected A

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You must put up links, H,? :-0


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Re: Prescribed Norms/Standards For Management of Protected A

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The coal goes to China! :-)

Here endeth the lesson!


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Re: Prescribed Norms/Standards For Management of Protected A

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Richprins wrote:Here endeth the lesson!
Paradox at play???,.....

Perhaps look at ending tuition, for it goes to Africa???


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Re: Prescribed Norms/Standards For Management of Protected A

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I wish I could reproduce a recent Spoornet/transnet announcement that coal trains are being multiplied going to Maputo, Richard's Bay and Durban for the export market! A good thing, taking the $%#@^ trucks off the roads eventually!

Also magnetite trains from Phalaborwa! \O

And Chrome from Steelpoort/Burgersfort..a new line, sort of!


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New Licensing Processes for Environmental Authorisations

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https://www.environment.gov.za/mediarel ... ntalsystem

Government's One Environmental System commences
09 December 2014



Government has commenced the rollout of the “One Environmental System” with effect from Monday, 8th December 2014, which will initiate the streamlining of the licensing processes for mining, environmental authorisations and water use.

The system, announced by the President in his State of the Nation Address in February this year, represents Government’s commitment to improve the ease of doing business and further enhance South Africa’s global competitiveness as a mining investment jurisdiction.

Under the One Environmental System, The Minister of Mineral Resources will issue environmental authorisations and waste management licences in terms of the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (Act No. 107 of 1998) (NEMA), and the National Environmental Management: Waste Act, 2008 (Act No. 59 of 2008), respectively, for mining and related activities. The Minister of Environmental Affairs will be the appeal authority for these authorisations.

The Ministers of Environmental Affairs, Mineral Resources as well as Water and Sanitation have agreed on fixed time-frames for the consideration and issuing of the permits, licences and authorisations in their respective legislation.

The aforestated Ministers further agreed to synchronise the process for the issuing of permits, licences and authorisations within a 300 day period. In the event that a decision to issue a license is appealed, an additional maximum period of 90 days is provided for legislatively, to finalise the process.

Until all the requisite legislative amendments have been effected to formalise the abovementioned timeframes, the timeframes stipulated in NEMA will be applicable. The Minister of Mineral Resources is authorised to appoint Environmental Mineral Resource Inspectors (EMRI), who will have the same powers as Environmental Management Inspectors to enforce the provisions of NEMA and the regulations there-under as far as it relates to mining and related activities.

The finalisation of the development of residue stockpiles, residue deposits and financial provision for rehabilitation regulations in terms of NEMA is still pending. Until such regulations are finalised, the MPRDA regulations will remain in force in this regard.

All environmental management plans or programmes approved in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002 (Act No. 28 of 2002), immediately before 8 December 2014, shall be deemed to be approved in terms of the NEMA. All pending applications on the 8th December 2014, lodged in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002 (Act No. 28 of 2002), shall be processed and finalised in terms of the MPRDA, as provided for in terms of section 12 of the National Environmental Management Amendment Act, 2008, and section 26 of the National Environmental Management Laws Amendment Act, 2014.

For further media enquiries, please contact:

Department of Mineral Resources

Ms PhutiMabelebele
Cell: 076 402 7521
E-mail: Phuti.Mabelebele@dmr.gov.za

Department of Environmental Affairs

Mr Albi Modise
Cell: 083 490 2871
E-mail: amodise@environment.gov.za

Issued by the Departments of Mineral Resources, Environment Affairs and Water Affairs


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Re: New Licensing Processes for Environmental Authorisations

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This is mostly to do with fracking, but will enable irritating EIA's and BAR's to be done by .gov all over the place, including Hotels in Kruger, methinks! 0()


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Re: Environmental Legislation, Assessment, Licensing

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No environmental assessments done for months

Environmental Impact Assessment Managament not happening

30 January 2015 15:00

18 Jones street, Nelspruit

MBOMBELA – There is a department known only by name and not by what its function is or by what it has achieved.

This is a description of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) management office of the Ehlanzeni South district of the Mpumalanga department of environmental affairs.



After some investigation it came to light that very little official work had been done by officials of this office for at least six months. Lowvelder reported on a similar situation in November 2014, when the electricity supply to the department’s former offices, was cut because of unpaid bills.

Before the general election in May 2014, environmental affairs fell under the finance department.

The provincial legislature decided after the election that it should forthwith be under the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Affairs, under MEC Mr Andries Gamede.

Environmental Assessment Practitioners (EAPs), who don’t want to be named, have complained to Lowvelder that no impact assessments have been considered or carried out for quite a few months.

“They have not looked at or attended to one EIA report received since October. They have indicated that all the legal time frames will be exceeded. We know they will do their best to catch up, but there is a limit to what they can manage under the current working conditions. We are thus looking at a three-month delay of EIA final reports submitted in October and November last year.”


The reason for this is that the authorisation officials do not yet have any Internet connection and rely on their own personal cellphones, while all their files, reports and research material are still packed in boxes.

EIA Management -1

Apparently this has serious repercussions for businesses, such as lodges which need to plan a year or more ahead for maintenance and upgrades. “Some of these establishments have undertaken all the correct procedures like public participation, among others. and have had their EIA reports submitted well in time. They have planned with sound margins, but now with this delay, these margins may well mean they have an empty lodge, with a contractor ready and on site, but with no environmental authorisation.”

This is not service delivery, an EAP told Lowvelder and added:

“The MEC must be held accountable. He has been in the position for nine months, but for a third of that time his environmental department has effectively not existed.”

Comment received from Ms Zanele Shabangu, the communications officer of the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Land and Environmental Affairs, merely highlighted the progress made and not the problems experienced, “The processes to integrate the environmental services into the department are underway, and there is significant progress.”




http://lowvelder.co.za/247410/no-enviro ... ne-months/


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Re: Environmental Legislation, Assessment, Licensing

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Case Note: Constitutional Court upholds Minister’s defence of amendments to National Environmental Management Act
FEBRUARY 29, 2016 AT 5:30 PM


On 23 February 2016, the Constitutional Court upheld the Minister and Department of Environmental Affairs’ appeal against a judgement of the Pretoria High Court setting aside the publication of the National Environmental Laws Amendment Act 25 of 2014 (NEMLAA) signed into force by the President in June 2014. This means that the validity of NEMLAA – a key piece of legislation in the infrastructure of the One Environmental System – has been confirmed. The judgement related in particular to the new requirement that mining companies must obtain environmental licences for stockpiles and residue deposits.

Here is the Constitutional Court’s judgement and media summary. Below is a summary of the proceedings in the High Court and Constitutional Court.

High Court proceedings

On 22 May 2015, judgment was handed down in the Gauteng Division of the High Court, Pretoria in the matter of Aquarius Platinum (SA) (Pty) Ltd v Minister of Water and Sanitation and others, setting aside the publication of the National Environmental Laws Amendment Act 25 of 2014 (NEMLAA).

The judgment set aside the publication of NEMLAA on the grounds that the President should not have published this Act without the promulgation of regulations required to implement the Act. NEMLAA introduced a number of amendments to the National Environmental Management Act, 1998 (NEMA) and to the National Environmental Management: Waste Act, 2008 (NEMWA), all part of the suite of Acts which gave rise to the One Environmental System.

The setting aside of the publication of NEMLAA was not an outcome expressly sought by Aquarius Platinum. Aquarius Platinum’s application to court stemmed from its frustration with the Department of Water & Sanitation (DWS) and the DMR in trying to obtain approval for a proposed project (the West-West Pit Project).

Part of Aquarius Platinum’s application to court concerned NEMLAA and the amendments which it brought about to NEMWA. These amendments meant that NEMWA now applies to stockpiles and residue deposits, and that mining companies who have stockpiles and residue deposits must apply to the DMR for both environmental authorisation and a waste management licence. Given the scope of hazardous waste generation and storage in tailings dams and dumps on mining sites (the mining sector is the single biggest generator of waste in South Africa), the mining industry strongly resisted having to be regulated by NEMWA during the law reform process. That battle was lost in Parliament, and so disposal pits such as the proposed West-West Pit now require a waste management licence under NEMWA.

However, the amended NEMWA provided that residue stockpiles and residue deposits must be managed in a manner to be prescribed by regulation. These regulations had not been published at the time of NEMLAA coming into force and at the time that Aquarius Platinum sought approval for its West-West Pit Project. Aquarius Platinum argued that these regulations were necessary for the proper implementation of the environmental regulation of residue stockpiles and residue deposits, and that the President acted irrationally by bringing NEMLAA into effect before the regulation were in place. In South African law, irrational conduct by an organ of state is unlawful and can be set aside by a Court.[1]

However, Aquarius Platinum had framed the relief it requested narrowly, essentially asking the court for special treatment: declaring its particular project to be authorised by the DMR without being subjected to any new waste law requirements.[2] The court, relying on Aquarius Platinum’s argument that the President’s decision to publish NEMLAA without the regulations was irrational, held that narrowly tailoring the relief of constitutional invalidity to the West-West Pit Project would not be appropriate. This led the court to set aside (subject to confirmation by the Constitutional Court) the publication of NEMLAA on the grounds that “the conundrum created by the publication of NEMLAA without the regulations has a far wider impact than simply on Aquarius”.

The High Court postponed the determination of Aquarius’s claim that the failure by the Department of Water Affairs to take a decision on its water use licence application was unlawful.

Constitutional Court proceedings

In terms of section 172(2)(a) of the Constitution, a High Court may make a finding of constitutional invalidity of legislation or conduct of the President, but such a finding will have no force unless it is confirmed by the Constitutional Court. The High Court’s finding that the President’s decision to publish NEMLAA was therefore referred to the Constitutional Court for confirmation.

The Minister of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Environmental Affairs, cited in the High Court case for their interest in the matter, also appealed against the finding of the High Court that the publication of NEMLAA by the President was unconstitutional.

Before the matter was heard by the Constitutional Court, the Minister of Environmental Affairs published Regulations Regarding the Planning and Management of Residue Stockpiles and Residue Deposits from a Prospecting, Mining, Exploration or Production Operation (24 July 2015). This prompted Aquarius to withdraw from the matter.

The Constitutional Court differed from the High Court as to whether the decision of the President to publish NEMLAA was irrational. In a unanimous judgement prepared by Jafta J, the Court held that the provision which empowered the President to publish, did not require the President to ascertain whether the relevant regulations were already made before publication. The Court reasoned that in the present circumstances publication of the Act could precede the making of the regulations because the Act came into effect three months from the date of publication.

The Constitutional Court pointed out that the Act afforded the Minister of Environmental Affairs three months to make the necessary regulations, and held that the President had no reason to believe that the Minister would fail to make the regulations within the stipulated time. For unexplained reasons, the Minister failed to make the necessary regulations before NEMLAA came into effect.[3] The Court found that this failure rendered the Act unworkable. The Court criticised the Minister’s conduct, remarking that “The fault for putting the Environmental Amendment Act into force without the necessary regulations lies squarely on the Minister’s shoulders. She and she alone is to blame and not the President.” However, having found that the President’s decision was not irrational, the Court upheld the appeal and declined to confirm the High Court’s order of invalidity.

Footnotes:

[1] Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of South Africa and another in re: the ex parte application of The President of the Republic of South Africa and others (case No. CCT 31/99)

[2] Aquarius Platinum asked that the court order that the licencing provisions of NEMWA are not applicable to the West-West Pit Project. Before NEMLAA amended NEMWA, residue stockpiles and deposits were regulated by Regulation 73 of the Regulations published in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, 2002. Aquarius Platinum argued that the DMR, by allowing it to amend its EMPR to include the construction and operation of the West-West Pit Project, had already authorised the project (since it was not disputed that the application for an amendment of the EMPR complied with Regulation 73).

[3] These regulations have since been published. See: Regulations regarding the planning and management of residue stockpiles and residue deposits from a prospecting, mining, exploration or production operation, published as GNR 632 in Government Gazette 39020 on 24 July 2015.


http://cer.org.za/news/case-note-consti ... gement-act


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Re: Environmental Legislation, Assessment, Licensing

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http://cer.org.za/news/newsflash-author ... resilience

Newsflash: Authorisation for Limpopo mine refused because of detrimental impacts on climate change resilience
MARCH 31, 2016 AT 7:51 AM


Earlier this month, the Limpopo Department of Economic Development and Tourism (LEDET) refused to grant an application for an iron ore mine, partly on the grounds that the proposed development site is important for climate change resilience.

LEDET refused to approve an environmental authorisation for Aquila Steel SA (Pty) Ltd’s proposed iron ore mine in Thabazimbi, Limpopo. In its 11 March 2016 decision, LEDET confirms, with reference to the White Paper on the National Climate Change Response, that one of South Africa’s climate change response objectives is to “effectively adapt to and manage unavoidable and potentially damaging climate change impacts through interventions that build and sustain South Africa’s social, economic and environmental resilience and emergency response capacity”.

In its refusal, LEDET notes that the Integrated Development Plan for the Thabazimbi Municipality recognises that the well-functioning ecosystems within the proposed development site “provide natural solutions that build resilience and help society adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change”. It acknowledges the importance of conserving and preserving “the unique ecosystem”, concluding that the iron ore mine fails to amount to sustainable development as “the disturbance of ecosystems and loss of biological diversity cannot be avoided, minimised and remedied”.

The Centre for Environmental Rights welcomes this decision, and the leadership demonstrated by LEDET in acknowledging the important role of climate change considerations in development decisions. This approach is in line with international trends.

Earlier this month, the Minister of Environmental Affairs ordered the developer of the proposed 1200MW Thabametsi independent power producer coal-fired power station – also to be located in water-scarce Limpopo – to conduct a climate change impact assessment.

Climate change aside, the iron ore mine proposed by Aquila has been the subject of various legal proceedings.

On 28 May 2015, the Traditional Healers Organization (THO), assisted by the CER attorneys, laid criminal charges against Aquila Steel and three of its directors: Johann Louis van Deventer, Anthony Poli and Martin Nicholas Alciaturi, for breaches of environmental, mining and water laws. The Department of Mineral Resources’ investigation of these charges is expected to be finalised shortly.

While Aquila Steel had obtained prospecting rights in 2007 and 2008 for iron ore on two properties outside of Thabazimbi in Limpopo, it had unlawfully constructed over 33 km of roads all over the Madimatle mountain, and drilled in approximately 200 locations, clearing vegetation and protected tree species in the process. As well as being in contravention of the conditions of its prospecting rights, these activities were conducted without environmental authorisation – a criminal offence under the National Environmental Management Act.

Despite its history of unlawful activities, Aquila Steel submitted new applications for mining rights and environmental authorisation in respect of these properties. These new applications were strongly opposed by a number of interested parties, including the THO.

The Madimatle mountain and Gatkop cave, sites of significant cultural, spiritual and historic value, are situated on these properties which Aquila Steel intends to mine. Many of the 69 000 traditional healer members of the THO visited the mountain and caves for spiritual reasons, until access was restricted by Aquila Steel.

It is hoped that LEDET’s decision to refuse environmental authorisation is the first in a string of decisions recognising the importance of this site, and that Aquila Steel’s application for a mining right will also be refused in line with the LEDET decision.


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