The Chanois coal mine is one of the main shafts of the
Ronchamp coal mines, in the French
commune of
Ronchamp, within the
Haute-Saône department, belonging to the
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. It was the center of
Ronchamp's coal mining operations from the late 19th century until the mines closed in 1958. It was therefore chosen as the site for the coal mine's ancillary facilities, including a
coal preparation plant
300px, A coal "washer" in Eastern Kentucky
A modern coal breaker in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania combines washing, crushing, grading, sorting, stockpiling, and shipping in one facility built into a stockpile of anthracite coal below a mountain top ...
, a
coking plant, and a
power station. It succeeded the
Saint Joseph shaft in 1895 and ceased mining in 1951.
At the beginning of the 21st century, many remnants of these facilities (
ruins, a large concrete hopper, converted buildings, and two imposing
spoil tips) remain.
Excavation
Before 1873, the Ronchamp coal mining company operated in the center of the
Ronchamp and Champagney coalfields
Ronchamp () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France.
It is located between the Vosges and the Jura mountains.
Mining Museum
Mining began in Ronchamp in the mid-18th century a ...
. But the
shafts used for this task reached the end of their production life and had to be replaced. This was the role of the
Magny and Chanois shafts.
[Les puits de Ronchamp]
on ''Les Amis du Musée de la Mine'' (accessed August 7th, 2012).
Excavation of the latter began on August 25, 1873, with a useful diameter of 3.20 meters. The ventilation shaft was sunk 25 meters from the former, with a diameter of 2.20 meters. A 120-meter-high casing was added to mitigate the 300 hectoliters-per-hour inflow of water. In addition to the casing, Neut et Dumont pumps were installed.
On February 16, 1877, the shaft encountered coal at depths of 580 meters, but the layer was unusable. The drilling stopped at 588 meters in the transitional ground. Research was made impossible by heavy water inflows, and the shaft remained inactive until 1895.
File:1880 - Puits du Chanois.jpg, Temporary installations for drilling the Chanois shaft.
File:Puits du Chanois (documents d'époque) - 05.jpg, Same view with the new permanent installations.
Exploitation
Mining began in the 20th century, with production rising steadily from 100 tonnes a day in 1895 to 250 tonnes a day in 1900, and finally reaching 12,587 tonnes in 1901. Following restoration, the 120 hp
Sainte-Pauline shaft
winding engine was installed on the site, using special
aloe
''Aloe'' (; also written ''Aloë'') is a genus containing over 650 species of flowering succulent plants.WFO (2022): Aloe L. Published on the Internet;http://www.worldfloraonline.org/taxon/wfo-4000001341. Accessed on: 06 Nov 2022 The most wid ...
wire ropes. This type of cable was used until the end of operations.
The recette jour building was installed more than six meters above ground level, as evidenced by old postcards, plans, and the
wide stone wall visible until 2014.
[Le puits du Chanois]
on ''Les Amis du Musée de la Mine'' (accessed on August 7th, 2012).
File:Puits du Chanois (documents d'époque) - 03.jpg, Overview of the shaft at the start of its activity, with the emerging slag heap and Bourlémont hill in the background.
File:Puits du Chanois 1.jpg, Close-up view of the extraction building, with the town of Ronchamp in the background.
File:1880's - Chvalement - Puits du Chanois.jpg, Metal headframe located in the extraction building of the Chanois shaft.
File:Entrée du puits du Chanois.jpg, Side view of the extraction building.
The
compressed air
Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air is an important medium for transfer of energy in industrial processes, and is used for power tools such as air hammers, drills, wrenches, and o ...
used at the Magny and Chanois wells was generated by two Burckardt compressors and an older
Sommeiller compressor. By 1897, these had to be replaced by new five-cubic-meter compressors powered by a 150-
horsepower steam engine.
In 1902, a
pump
A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic energy. Pumps can be classified into three major groups according to the method they u ...
and
electric light
An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...
ing were installed at the bottom. Between 1904 and 1910, a fire raged at the bottom of the mine, causing no casualties.
In 1928, an assembly was dug to the
Sainte Marie Coal Mine, and in 1929, the 1,500-meter-long "Cameroun" bowette (rock tunnel) linked it to the
Notre-Dame shaft. These two shafts still had exploitable coal seams, but were not equipped for extraction.
In 1933, the
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
was replaced by an electric one.
File:Puits du Chanois machine à vapeur.jpg, The steam engine.
File:Puits du Chanois machine électrique.jpg, The electric machine.
File:Puits du Chanois (documents d'époque) - 16.jpg, The recette building
File:Puits du Chanois (documents d'époque) - 11.jpg, View of the minecarts coming out.
When the French coal industry was
nationalized in 1946, under the impetus of the
Provisional Government led initially by
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...
, the Ronchamp coalfield was entrusted to
Électricité de France
Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...
(EDF), as it was too far from the other major coalfields and included a major thermal power station.
The Chanois shaft closed in 1951, before the
Arthur de Buyer Coal Mine. In 1958, both shafts were backfilled with
shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
and covered with a concrete slabs.
Reconversion
After closure, the installations were dismantled, and the muffler and
air compressor were reassembled on the
Etançon shaft. The buildings were demolished between 1960 and 1963 to make way for the Germinal housing estate, comprising three blocks of flats. All that remains is the ruined extraction building and the lamp factory, which retains its roof. The extraction building was finally demolished in 1980.
In the
2000s
File:2000s decade montage3.png, From top left, clockwise: The World Trade Center on fire and the Statue of Liberty during the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the euro enters into European currency in 2002; a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled durin ...
, the
ruins consisted of the dilapidated lamproom building, a remnant wall from the well building, and several blocks of masonry and concrete in a wasteland strewn with bricks and stones.
From 2011 to 2013, a construction site for six
pavilions required the destruction of several remnants. One of the three buildings of the Germinal housing estate was also demolished following authorization obtained on November 15, 2012.
File:Puits du Chanois- Février 2013 (1).JPG, The shaft wall.
File:Puits du Chanois- Février 2013 (2).JPG, View of the Germinal company town
A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schools, markets and re ...
.
File:Puits du Chanois- Février 2013 (6).JPG, Location of a future home.
File:Puits du Chanois- Février 2013 (7).JPG, Brick from old buildings.
File:Puits du Chanois-2011 (4).JPG, Remains of a building.
File:Puits du Chanois-2011 (3).jpg, Location of a former compressor .
In 2013, only a section of the wall of the recette jour building and the lamppost building remained intact, next to the
housing estate built on the site of several of the pit's buildings.
As of 2014, this wall no longer exists.
File:2015-03 - Puits du Chanois - 03.JPG, The Chanois shaft lamp factory (2015).
File:2015-03 - Puits du Chanois - 02.JPG, alt=
File:2015-03 - Puits du Chanois - 08.JPG, alt=
File:2015-03 - Puits du Chanois - 06.JPG, An allotment.
Annex facilities
The
sorting-washing-screening workshops were built in 1898, replacing the small workshops from the Magny shaft. A coking plant was built between 1900 and 1920 to replace the furnaces in the Saint-Joseph shaft. It closed in 1933, while the rest of the installations remained in operation until the mines closed in 1958. The power station was operated by the
Ronchamp coal mines from its construction between 1906 and 1907 until its nationalization in 1946, when it became the property of
Électricité de France
Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...
until its closure in 1958. The plant was expanded twice between 1910 and 1924, to reach a capacity of 30 MW. Annual production varied between 5 and 37
GWh
A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kWâ‹…h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a unit of energy: one kilowatt of power for one hour. In terms of SI derived units with special names, it equals 3.6 megajoules (MJ). Kilowatt-hours are a common bil ...
until 1950. A few ruins of these installations (including one hopper) remained at the beginning of the 21st century, whereas the second hopper was dynamited by the army in the
1960s
File:1960s montage.png, Clockwise from top left: U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; the Beatles led the British Invasion of the U.S. music market; a half-a-million people participate in the 1969 Woodstock Festival; Neil Armstrong and Buzz ...
and left in place.
File:Puits du Chanois (documents d'époque) - 14.jpg, The Chanois district , with its foundries, shaft, power station, sandpit, railroad tracks, and slag heaps.
File:Cokerie-lavoir du Chanois - XXe - 05 - Crop.jpg, Overview of the coking plant and power station between the wars.
The company town
The mining company town was built, in 1919, after
World War I, initially to accommodate
troops, before being used between 1923–1925 to house
Polish immigrants
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screen ...
. It consisted of small, temporary barracks that were still inhabited after the mine closed. During the nationalization of the mine, the housing estate was the property of EDF, then taken over by the municipality, which rehoused the inhabitants elsewhere. It was demolished in early 1976 and replaced by a
housing project
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authorities, government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the d ...
in the northern part and a low-cost apartment (
HLM
An habitation à loyer modéré (HLM, , ), is a form of low-income housing in France, Algeria, Senegal, and Quebec. It may be public or private, with rent subsidies.
HLMs constitute 16% of all housing in France.[coal preparation plant
300px, A coal "washer" in Eastern Kentucky
A modern coal breaker in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania combines washing, crushing, grading, sorting, stockpiling, and shipping in one facility built into a stockpile of anthracite coal below a mountain top ...]
, which also received products from the Magny and
Arthur de Buyer Coal Mine, as well as the Etançon outcrops. As a result, there are numerous conical and flat
slag heaps around these facilities, located on the Chanois plain. Before their exploitation in 2010, the total volume of mine waste was estimated at 1 million tonnes. Some of these spoil tips undergo
spontaneous internal combustion over several decades, giving them a red color.
Exploitation
These slag heaps, still rich in
coal, were exploited by the Escaut-Énergie company between March 1985 and December 1986. Most of the slag heaps on the Chanois plain have disappeared (exploited as a
quarry), particularly those near the shaft.
On May 17, 2010, the Prefect of Haute-Saône authorized the exploitation of the slag heap's
shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
s as a quarry by the limited company GDFC (granulats de Franche-Comté), on condition that the protected natural environments remain intact and that the historic sites are respected (certain slag heaps, buildings and the concrete hopper). The same company had already been operating the slag heap ("Le Triage") since 1994.
File:2016-10 - Escaut-Énergie (Magny-Danigon) - 03.jpg, alt=
File:2016-10 - Escaut-Énergie (Magny-Danigon) - 04.jpg, alt=
File:2016-10 - Escaut-Énergie (Magny-Danigon) - 06.jpg, alt=
File:2016-10 - Escaut-Énergie (Magny-Danigon) - 08.jpg, alt=
Fossils
The spoil tips contain numerous
fossils dating back to the
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
period, and are unique because they group together plants living in a dry, mountain environment (
Blackthorn,
Ferns, ''
Cordaites'', and the first flowering plants, which are only found in the most recent layers) and in
marshy lowland environments (''
Lepidodendron''
buttercup, Sigillaria, ''
Calamites'', ''
Sphenophyllum''), as well as freshwater fish.
Natural area
In the early
2000s
File:2000s decade montage3.png, From top left, clockwise: The World Trade Center on fire and the Statue of Liberty during the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the euro enters into European currency in 2002; a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled durin ...
, the SMPM association carried out an inventory of the
mycoflora
Mycobiota (plural noun, no singular) are a group of all the fungi present in a particular geographic region (e.g. "the mycobiota of Ireland") or habitat type (e.g. "the mycobiota of cocoa").
Human mycobiota
Mycobiota exist on the surface and in th ...
on the Chanois slag heaps area, which had been overtaken by
birch and
willow, discovering several rare species such as ''
Pisolithus arhizus
''Pisolithus arhizus'' is a widespread earth-ball like fungus, which may in fact be several closely related species. Common names include dead man's foot and dyeball. It is known in Australia as the horse dung fungus, in South Africa as perdeb ...
'', ''Lactarius fuscus'', and ''
Stropharia rugosoannulata'', demonstrating the importance of conserving these slag heaps. On June 19, 2007, the Ronchamp town council officially announced the conservation of the north-western section of the Plaine du Chanois slag heaps and those of the Etançon mine shaft. At the same time, the non-vegetated part of the site (nicknamed the "crassier") is regularly used for
motocross, but this is prohibited by the
Ronchamp town council due to the
noise pollution it causes,
offenders risk a €135 fine and confiscation of the
motorcycle and its transport vehicle.
File:2020-05 - Vue aérienne des terrils du Chanois - 13.jpg, The red slag heap (Ronchamp) on the left and the black slag heap (Magny-Danigon) on the right.
File:2015-10 - Terril du Chanois - 19.JPG, Red slag heap (Ronchamp).
File:2015-10 - Terril du Chanois - 02.JPG, The quarried slag heap (Magny-Danigon).
File:2015-10 - Terril du Chanois - 18.JPG, Exploited area.
Reception area for travellers
From 2013 to 2014, the
Rahin et Chérimont Community of Communes built a reception area for
Travellers to the northeast of the remaining slag heaps, next to the former coking plant. It includes eight
parking
Parking is the act of stopping and disengaging a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied. Parking on one or both sides of a road is often permitted, though sometimes with restrictions. Some buildings have parking facilities for use of the buildings' ...
areas of 80 m
2 each, and three platforms for long-stay travelers, with a total usable surface area of 9,200 m
2.
File:2015-10 - Terril du Chanois - 24.JPG, The formation of the red slag heap
File:2015-10 - Terril du Chanois - 33.JPG, The quarried slag heap near the shaft
File:2015-10 - Aire d'accueil des gens du voyage de Ronchamp - 04.JPG, Travellers' reception area
File:2015-10 - Aire d'accueil des gens du voyage de Ronchamp - 02.JPG, The three platforms
Photovoltaic plant
In 2021, a project to build a 5.9-hectare
photovoltaic power plant on the Chanois slag heaps was initiated jointly by the communes of
Ronchamp and
Magny-Danigon, with the support of the Rahin et Chérimont Communauté de Communes and the
Pays de Lure Communauté de Communes, in collaboration with
TotalEnergies and Altergie. The plant is to be located in two zones: the Ronchamp zone (2.6 hectares) will be set up at the top of the red slag heap, near the Chanois well and the former
coal-fired power station
A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts Nameplate capacity, capacity. They ...
-whose former substation will be used for power distribution- and the Magny-Danigon zone (3.3 hectares) will be located on the former slag heap sorted by Escaut-Énergie and mined for
aggregates. Work is scheduled to start in 2023–2024, with commissioning scheduled for 2025. The project comprises a total of 9,256 potential modules with a maximum output of 4.99
MWp MWp or MWP may refer to:
* Medieval Warm Period, a time of warm climate in the North Atlantic region
* Mega Watt peak, a solar power measure in photo-voltaic (PV) industry to describe a unit's Nominal power (photovoltaic)#Watt-peak, nominal power
* ...
, enough to cover the electricity consumption of 3,480 inhabitants.
[Guillaume Minaux,]
Une centrale solaire en projet près de Lure
archive
in ''L'Est républicain'', December 11th, 2021 (accessed December 15th, 2021).
References
See also
Related articles
*
:fr:Mining in France
*
Ronchamp coal mines
*
Mining basin of Ronchamp and Champagney
The mining basin of Ronchamp and Champagney is a territory located in the Departments of France, department of Haute-Saône and the French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; economically, socially, environmentally, and culturally marked by the i ...
*
Thermal power station of Ronchamp
*
:fr:Chanois coking and washing plant
External links
Friends of the Mine Museum websitearchive on ''http://www.abamm.org/''
on ''http://www.abamm.org/'
archive on ''http://jtaiclet.free.fr/'
archiveRonchamp in the last century.
on ''http://jtaiclet.free.fr/'
archiveRonchamp in the last century.
on ''http://jtaiclet.free.fr/'
archiveRonchamp in the last century.
Bibliography
*Jean-Jacques Parietti, ''Les Houillères de Ronchamp vol. I: La mine'', Vesoul, Éditions Comtoises, 2001, 87 p. ().
*Jean-Jacques Parietti, ''Les Houillères de Ronchamp vol. II: Les mineurs'', Noidans-lès-Vesoul, fc culture & patrimoine, 2010, 115 p. ()
*Jean-Jacques Parietti, ''Les dossiers de la Houillère 1: Le puits Sainte marie'', Association des amis du musée de la mine, 1999
read onlinearchive
.
*Jean-Jacques Parietti, ''Les dossiers de la Houillère 5: Le puits du Magny'', Association des amis du musée de la mine, 1999 (2).
*Jean-Jacques Parietti, ''Les dossiers de la Houillère 6: Le puits de l'Étançon'', Association des amis du musée de la mine, 2017.
*Jean-Jacques Parietti and Christiane Petitot, ''Géomètre aux houillères de Ronchamp'', Association des amis du musée de la mine, 2005.
*Conseil général du Territoire de Belfort, ''Vivre le Territoire : Le magazine de conseil général du Territoire de Belfort'', Belfort, October 2013, 142nd ed., 31 p.
*Édouard Thirria, ''Manuel à l'usage de l'habitant du département de la Haute-Saône'', 1869
read onlinearchive
, p. 182-186.
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