By their fruits shall ye know them (2)

Mike Bolan

Environmental management director Warren Jones, who will help choose the independent pulp mill consultant, claimed the clear intent of the laws was to give the consultant the pollution standards as a “point of reference”.

FROM last Wednesday’s Mercury we find …

… senior bureaucrats at the briefing said the Government accepted the inability of the Gunns pulp mill to pass these environmental hurdles as “reasonable”.

How is ‘reasonableness’ determined and by whom. Certainly not people living in the Tamar valley.

Environmental management director Warren Jones, who will help choose the independent pulp mill consultant, claimed the clear intent of the laws was to give the consultant the pollution standards as a “point of reference”.

So that’s the point of standards. Perhaps this applies in other cases?

Mr. Jones also said … “We didn’t want to end up with a nonsensical outcome, where slavish adherence to guidelines resulted in a mill that did not represent international world best practice.”

Huh? I thought the idea of pollution control measures WAS adherence … clearly adherence is no longer a requirement. And how is a better pollution control result ‘nonsensical’?

Mr Jones said world best practice “had evolved” and just because the Gunns pulp mill would not meet set pollution guidelines did not mean the “bar was being lowered”.

I need a lot of help interpreting this stuff. Presumably Mr Jones means that World best practice ‘had evolved’ downwards.

Fellow bureaucrat Stuart Johnson said the Government had been informed by Gunns that the proposed design of the mill meant it “won’t be able to at all times meet nitrous oxide emissions”.

Why not design a mill that DOES meet the nitrous oxide emission limits then?

Are these the people who are protecting the health, safety and industry in the Tamar valley does anyone know?

Earlier: By their fruits shall ye know them