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Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
A new coal mining concern, Liberation Coal Mining has submitted its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report to the Environmental Management Agency (Ema) seeking a green light to start extraction at its Gwayi concession in Lupane District, Matabeleland North Province.
Liberation Coal Mining’s environmental consultant firm, Environmental Guardians Services (EGS) confirmed that the coal mining company’s EIA report for coal mining was submitted to Ema on Friday last week.
The firm is one of the 20 entities which were awarded a Special Grant by the Government to explore and extract coal and coal bed methane gas in the Hwange-Lupane area in 2010.
“We have submitted the EIA for coal mining. It’s now up to Ema to determine when it will do the assessment, which is of course next year,” said EGS senior consultant Mr Michael Montana.
He, however, said the company should put in place contingent measures to guard against acid mine drainage into water bodies.
Part of the company’s mining activities would be conducted at the throwback of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam.
“We, however, want to acknowledge that the company will be mining in a very sensitive ecological environment in terms of both fauna and hydrology so on the water quality a baseline survey water analysis indicated that the water around the area can promote acid mine drainage or generation therefore Liberation Mine has got to start water management before active mining,” said Mr Montana.
Acid mine drainage refers to the outflow of acidic water from a mining site.
Liberation Coal Mining’s group director — mining, technical services and strategy Engineer Peter Mutsinya confirmed the submission of the EIA report to Ema, further stating that the company was working on commissioning its plant soon.
“I can confirm that we submitted our EIA report to Ema and we have paid in full all the required fees and we are expecting our production licence and are also looking forward to commissioning our plant soon,” he said.
Eng Mutsinya said the company has already hired the services of a reputable international firm to avert acid mine drainage.-@DNsingo
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