Dave Groves
Despite this special deal, the millions of taxpayer dollars sunk into the black hole by ignorant politicians and the green or amber light that Garrett has recently switched on to the proposal, the pulp mill paradigm that has decimated the proponent’s worth and divided community more deeply than at any time in recent history remains as much a dream for the proponent as it ever was and as much a nightmare for the community as they should never have to endure.
The show continues.
The Show Continues
YEAR FIVE of the unpaid job which began with input to make sure that what Gunns was proposing would be as clean and green as they first spruiked, “World’s best practice”.
It seems the only thing green about their pulp mill is the paint job.
It soon became apparent that “World’s Best Practice” related only to the financial side of the proposal and the environment which holistically includes community is excluded from this paradigm.
The law seems to be on their side as they continue to take protesters to the wall as well as contractors, but their actions are akin to the school bully who cowers behind the teacher pulling faces covertly at his victims.
Despised by those he hurts and protected by sheer cunning and a system geared to support his insecurities, he is as popular as a 1080 bait in a Bennett’s belly.
I used to live a few kilometres as the crow flies from the still proposed site of one of the biggest Kraft pulp mills on our planet.
This gigantic chemical factory is for dissolving our native forest and by admission is reliant on that concept both from a practical and financial viewpoint.
They don’t have the plantation “feedstock” and the extraordinary amount of native forest to quell the appetite of the behemoth is sold at a price that is a fraction of that of firewood and is for Tasmania, in reality, an embarrassing giveaway.
The site of this proposed mill is on a block of land the size of Rock of Gibraltar.
It is a colossus that you would expect to find in Texas where everything has to be bigger, not on a tiny island like Tasmania.
Gunns have never been engaging with the community. The only contact we had was through the media promotion unit of Gunns which was the publically funded and now defunct “Pulp Mill Taskforce”.
We were availed of glossy brochures that extolled the virtues of this saviour that would employ 8,000 people and actually improve air quality and tourism in the Tamar Valley. Brightly coloured balloons were handed out to complete the warm and fuzzy illusion.
The only other advice that came was a DVD (We never received one at home….I had to acquire one) that showed how people in Finland loved their pulp mills and relish the consumption of fish taken from lakes, such as Saimaa, that are used as dumping grounds for pulp effluent.
It failed to mention the decrease in fish species like trout and whitefish that used to swim in these now tainted waters or the effect on their gonads (Thanks for that).
TCF technology has been around for many years, but the push was on for a cheaper model to fit in with “World’s Best Practice” and that’s where their budget ECF mill comes to the fore.
It relies on chlorine and extreme heat to melt the forest into pulp and the resultant effluent is the concern as well as what comes out of the chimney stack.
The sheer volume of this proposal should frighten all Tasmanians who treasure health and life over rampant destruction of amenity and habitat.
The size of the factory we know, the volume of forest to feed this behemoth is also as staggering.
We have all witnessed the massive juggernauts laden with plunder that thunder down our windy country lanes and highways as they wheel toward the forest abattoirs with native forest sardined over the top of the restraining poles balancing so precariously, but imagine over one hundred thousand of them jostling and jockeying for position each year to enter the gates of forest Auschwitz.
That’s enough log trucks each year to make a tower that would fill York Park to a height of around 1.5 kilometres.
As we buy power from Victoria because we don’t have enough water to run Hydro and many towns such as Ross and Chudleigh are lacking this valuable resource, the proposed pulp mill is set to consume at peak the equivalent volume of around two thousand tri axle fuel tankers each day.
That’s 100,000,000 litres a day or if you bottled it and sold it for the princely sum of one cent per litre bottle you would have $1 million a day in your bank account.
The effluent remains a major concern.
Fact is the project needs to do another two years of modelling to “get the science right” before it has a chance to get the tick.
That means six years of trying to bash a square peg into a round hole.
Given that Gunns has allegedly spent $100 million on this project thus far and the taxpayers have shouted them many millions more, it would seem they either need a bigger hammer for the pegs or they could sell the pegs for firewood to recoupe their losses.
Either way something will have to give.
This year will be an interesting one for this lingering proposal, with the blame finger pointed at “world credit crisis” or “green lies” for lack of movement at the Longreach bushland. Perhaps they could blame some “aboriginal voodoo/curse” as a new tack?
I digress.
The process was supposed to be all “above board”, with the RPDC (Resource Planning and Development Commission) to assess the project.
When this umpire was sacked in curious and somewhat sinister circumstances, a new term came to the fore, the Pulp Mill “Approval Process”.
This new method was put in place to exclude community and put and end to any impediments to the proposal.
Despite this special deal, the millions of taxpayer dollars sunk into the black hole by ignorant politicians and the green or amber light that Garrett has recently switched on to the proposal, the pulp mill paradigm that has decimated the proponent’s worth and divided community more deeply than at any time in recent history remains as much a dream for the proponent as it ever was and as much a nightmare for the community as they should never have to endure.
The show continues.
Dave Groves
