Polasciana’s largest city is bracing itself for a heavy night of protest after environmental lobbyists scaled the walls of the Governor and Mayor’s offices in the city of Arvi. Environmental action groups have launched protests to coincide with a visit to nearby Bykiven, the industrial heartland of Amar, by President Artamova in the wake of industrial announcements.
Visiting the city, which is home to a workforce of over two million heavy industry workers, the President announced that the states of Amar and Buratiyan would be granted an exclusion from federal mandates on tackling pollution. Passed under his predecessor Koruin Gruaman, the original legislation prevented the expansion of heavy industry in what were classed as ‘saturated and over polluted’ areas. Both states, which house large parts of Polasciana’s energy and production sectors were placed under the restrictions, until the recently passed Energy and Economic Futures Bill removed binding targets for restricted areas.
Protesting against the announcement that five deep coal mines, originally closed when environmental legislation came in to effect in 2006, activists have staged a sit-in in Governor Schavelev’s offices. Safety campaigners have also joined the protests this afternoon after the announcement was made that the mines will be reopened without being refitted with new safety modifications and without pollution emissions targets.
The reworked bill, which passed in the lower house in June, is one of the flagship policies of the new president. It aims to create over 500,000 new jobs by revitalising the nations energy sector over the next two years, and push Polasciana towards an ‘end-goal’ of energy independence. The bill has overturned environmental protection laws, and increased funding for modern technology in oil and gas exploration. But the news of this latest expansion of deep coal mining has come as a surprise to many in the industry, who believed that the bill would only lift exemptions for gas and oil, which the country exports in small volumes.
“I hear the protesters, I hear what they say but by creating over 500,000 new jobs we can drive forward the technological development of this country – we can drive forward the technologies that will create the green energy of the future,” said Ada Mantel, the Minister for Energy, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection while accompanying the President, “With the economy moving again, we should be confident that we are doing the right thing.” Ms Mantel, of the Centrists is supportive of the new investment into traditional energy sources but went on to comment that she believed the president was ‘wrong’ to veto certain sections of the bill, which included creating a new ‘energy regulator’ – a measure blocked by the Unionists, stating it was ‘the first stop on the road to privatisation’.
One of the protesters, Nataly Egorov, who was dragged from the roof by police officers said she believed the bill would ‘destroy people’s homes and lives’, “The president doesn’t understand the damage he’s going to do to communities in Amar. We’ve lived with the scars of the coal industry before – these mines were closed for a reason, our children and our husbands deserve better jobs than this.” But Governor Andrei Pribylov of Buratiyan, another Unionist, welcomed the news; “This is a great step forward for our industry. With these mines back open, and people back to work, our people will be better off for it. I promise, personally, that once people are back to work they are going back to safe and secure working conditions – the President is granting us ₭3bn to see that the work is done.”
The Police Force in Arvi says it will allow ‘peaceful’ protest to continue, but released an arrest figure of over 60, aimed as a warning sign to would-be protesters heading for the city overnight.
