.jpg)
Tea Treat 2024
This year’s annual Tea Treat was thankfully not marred by high winds as it was in 2023. In fact, it was a wonderful summer’s day! (Yes, what is one of those?!)
We had a great attendance this year for the Tea Treat itself with folk music provided during the day procession and evening ceilidh music from the Rosevilles, kids games, lots of lovely cakes and of course saffron buns! The evening Ceilidh rounded off a perfect traditional summers' day event.
Our thanks to the village hall and all the wonderful volunteers who made the day such a success! Thanks also to Dave Harrison for permission to use Trew Green.
A few pictures of a fabulous day! (some images courtesy of Si Colgan)
Nimby's Corner
As promised in July’s Nimby’s Corner, we want to focus on water and why the threat of mining in Breage Parish is of concern.
In most areas of the world there is concern over minings' over abundant use of water. but here in Breage that is not the only problem. In the absence of any groundwater, Cornwall relies on surface water. As we know, this causes restrictions on usage during dry summers. Of course our domestic supply is protected by filtration.
Of course our domestic supply is protected by filtration. However, one of the problems we face is the gradual acidification of untreated surface and groundwater in the Parish from mining activity dating back centuries. Both these sources of increasingly acidic water have a knack of altering the chemical structure of earth’s minerals leading to dire consequences for species depletion, both inland and at sea causing long term harm to our environment. This is already the case at Wheal Vor. The Environment Agency has highlighted this problem many times but lacks the resources for any remedial actions.
Any new successful mining operations in Breage will only accelerate the situation no matter how carefully the planning authority try to regulate the miners.
So what are the specific water related issues pertaining to Breage Parish?
• New underground mines will require substantial investment in de-watering. The larger the investment the greater the risk of commercial failure. We should bear in mind that the South Crofty project lying just nine miles away is planning to produce enough tin by 2027 to easily cater for the UK’s annual consumption. By way of illustration South Crofty’s latest preliminary economic assessment shows a provision of $14 million for dewatering.
• The long history of mining of Copper and Tin in Breage largely concluded by the end of the 19th Century left the parish honeycombed with abandoned mines, boreholes and tailings - the locations of many of which have been lost in the mists of time. Surveying the location and profile of these old workings cannot be 100% guaranteed as any responsible mining engineer will admit. A potential catastrophic break out of water into newly excavated mine workings remains an issue.
• The proximity of the extensive and valuable holiday area of Porthleven lying no more than three kilometres downstream of the likely portal exit of the Cornish Tin project would significantly detract from the desirability of the area. Any flooding event upstream would have an immediate and powerful impact in this neighbourhood.
• Both the Cornish Tin and the Godolphin projects are designated as underground mines although the latest bulletin from Cornish Tin infers an additional secondary Lithium hard rock mine project, possibly by way of open cast activity although it is hard to believe they would be granted permission for this in such an area as ours. In both underground projects the tailings are left underground and used to infill the voids created by the extraction. It is considered a highly complex operation with a very real risk of making water contamination worse by inadequate stabilising paste with the further risks associated with diverting the course of water flow. We remember the problems caused by concretions of mine waste used to make building slabs (so called Mundic blocks) during the 1950s and 1960s.
These are just some of the issues that surround protecting the quality of our water against mining activity.
With the uncertain future consequences of climate change, we strongly believe that all mineral extraction activities should be suspended and subjected to the most rigorous evidence based scrutiny unless they are based on existing infrastructures.
In the next edition of Nimby’s Corner we take a look at the economic issues surrounding the creation of a new tin mine in Breage.
Did You Know? The Royal Mint are opening a factory in South Wales to recycle Gold from E-waste. Now it occurs to us that if gold can be recycled from e-waste for luxury products like jewellery, then surely it is possible to recycle the tin in e-waste (far greater by quantity!) and use it to meet the UK's domestic need without resorting to digging new holes in the ground and polluting the environment for centuries to come!  Subscribe to our newsletter for more news of our next recycling event coming later this year. Last year's event was a great success and we're hoping to make it bigger and better this year. "Where there's muck there's brass" as they say in Yorkshire! |
Local News and Events
Carleen & District Annual Village Show : Saturday 7th September 2024 at Carleen Village Hall, TR13 9QP doors open 2.45pm
Admission fee : £1, children free
A local event not to be missed with prizes for fruit, vegetables and flowers and a kid's section which is always delightful.
There's still time to get your entries in for the annual village show : schedules with entry forms are available from the village hall committee members.
Carleen Village Hall present Carn to Cove's Samson & Delilah Saturday 14th September 2024 7.30pm to 10pm, Carleen Village Hall
The Killigrew’s are up to their usual devious ways in Falmouth and Queen Elizabeth is not at all happy.
Sir Francis Godolphin is fighting the Spanish in Penzance and is not at all happy.
Blissfully unaware and occasionally happy, the Tudor players of Penryn are staging ‘Samson & Delilah.’
The tour travels along Cornish coastal communities – from Mousehole to Penryn – where the Cornish and Spanish finally meet. Two worlds are about to collide both on and off the stage!
Jason Squibb (The Trench Levant Mine/Bodmin, Artistic Director for the Cornish Ordinalia 2021) directs, and brings together a cast of professional actors and volunteer community performers. For audiences 8+
Tickets: From Dugg 01736763457
Adult £8, Child £5, Family of 4 £20
Woodland Wellbeing Day at Lottie's Farm Tuesday 27th August 10am - 15.30pm
Many members of the local community came to the first tree planting event in March and helped plant nearly 500 trees. Plant One CIC are returning on the 27th August to check on the success of the planting and help the small trees with a little weeding. If you would like to get involved and see the progress come along at 10am.
More trees will be planted in December as part of the ongoing plan to improve the natural habitat at Lotties.
We are hoping for good weather ...but please come prepared. More details here about what to bring
Location:-
Lotties Farm
Wheal Vor
Breage
Helston, Cornwall
TR13 9NH
Macmillan Coffee morning 21st September 10.30-Midday at Carleen Village Hall
Join one of the UK's biggest annual fundraising events supporting people living with cancer.
Food For Thought
We are currently in a climate crisis largely due to the fact that the status quo of "business as usual" has allowed fossil fuel companies and others to not have to consider so called "externalities" such as damage to the environment on their account books. The impacts and cost of the damage caused by this, has of course fallen largely on the public and the taxpayer.
We hear much of "green mining" and the "green energy transition" used to justify the further extraction of minerals to tackle the climate crisis but there is little evidence of serious efforts to legislate so that the companies in the extractative industries are forced to provide for the cost of clean up and the damage caused by their activities. It is not without precedent that companies involved in serious pollution incidents simply declare bankruptcy when faced with fines and leave the taxpayer to foot the bill.
|
Stay in touch!
If you want to tell us about your upcoming event, or if you are considering becoming a member and actively supporting our campaign to stop mining and the destruction of our local environment, or have any queries please head over to our contact page.
If you'd like to hear more local news and events from the Breage Parish area then feel free to sign up for our free mailing list.