Greens, a tad Yellow on Copping dump?

Southern Waste Solutions CEO, Christine Bell

Greens Member for Lyons, Tim Morris has said a social license has become an important part of any development going ahead in Tasmania. He told ABC Radio’s Leon Compton in an interview on Mornings talk back (18 September, 2012) that the waste disposal facility planned for Copping would continue to struggle for acceptance because of opposition from the community.

The [i]Tasmanian Public & Environmental Health Network[/i] agrees with Tim Morris but the approval of major projects without rigorous scientific assessment and community consultation has become a hallmark of developments in Tasmania.

The science of contaminated waste management and the risk assessment of this site by a responsible entity are central to the opposition to this development sat Copping.

Tim Morris was previously on Council in the 1990’s during the extensive process for selecting a site for a future Southern Regional Waste Facility. Tim Morris agrees that a Category 3 [hazardous] waste facility needs to go somewhere and has spent considerable time in discussion with SWS representatives. Unfortunately, the community is ignorant of the other 25 potential sites assessed for this proposed Copping Contaminated Cell facility.

To date Tim Morris’s concerns have focused on the failures of the community consultation aspect of the SWS proposal and not the science of risk management of hazardous waste or the best practice landfill technology available in the 21st Century.

It is a concern within the community that Green aldermen from participating Councils that make up the Southern Water Solutions corporation have also been conspicuously silent on the issue of the proposed Copping Contaminated Cell facility.

A recent meeting with one Green alderman highlighted a disturbing degree of apprehension that the Greens Party seem to have on this issue. An unwillingness to even discuss such an important issue with a concerned ratepayer who probably voted for them is very worrying indeed.

The development of the first Contaminated Cell waste site facility in Tasmania seems to have caught the Green Party on the hop. Surely this should have been a matter for State Government to sponsor and for the State Government to undertake a thorough community engagement on at all stages of the assessment process.

To date the Tasmanian Greens have only spoken out about the level of community consultation conducted by SWS as the bear minimum and inadequate. Indeed the Tasmanian EPA proformas expect any proponent to have fulfilled comprehensive community consultation before making such applications for permits.

The inadequacy of the community consultation process before Council ticked off on the SWS proposal and before permits were issued by the EPA should invalidate this existing application.

Mr Morris when did the Tasmanian Greens stop scrutinizing all aspects to development proposals of state significance?

Are the Greens going to look into the Copping toxic dump proposal?

Tim Morris MP in an interview with Leon Compton on Mornings on 18 September 2012

[i]“It’s not so much the individual need to expand the Copping tip but the need to have somewhere to put this ‘Category 3’ waste. Well, Copping has been the site that’s been selected ahh… In fact it was first selected through the 90s for the Southern Regional Waste facility. That was through an extensive process. I was on Council at the time and was involved in that process to some degree. And have been aware of it for at least 15 years now.”

“So, not to necessarily support the proponent or, ahh… the community… or take one side in this. Ahh… but clearly where there was a failure in this was that the proponents… well, not so much the proponents, but the EPA and the Sorell Council in their assessment and going out to public consultation did what was the minimum legal requirement as far as public notification around this and inviting public comment.”

“I don’t not have a particular opinion, ahh… at this stage, as to whether Copping is the right place for this particular waste. That is something… that is a decision that comes [i]after[/i] the public consultation process [i]and after[/i] the assessment of the public consultation, answering the questions. It’s when we get the full answers to all the questions that have been asked that we will actually be in a position to know whether Copping is the right location.”

“¬I trust that Southern Waste Solutions will do a proper assessment of it and they will refer the relevant questions to either the Sorell Council or the EPA for proper assessment.”

“But sometimes just doing the minimum legal requirement is not enough. And this is the case where we have a very significant facility here, that’s expected to take up moderate level waste for a very long time and it needs a reasonable level of community support. Now the community can only give that support, or withhold it, if they have been properly informed. And as yet they don’t feel they’ve had that.”

“I see the failure in this is the failure of the consultation process to properly alert the community into what was being proposed. And to then get a reasonable level of feedback from the community.”

“I have, ahh… ahh… intrinsic trust that the community actually has a collective wisdom out there. And that the community needs to be heard. I’m not about supporting ramming this through. That does not change the fact that Tasmania should have a facility available for this level of waste. But I’m not going to ram something down the community’s throats. I have spent quite a bit of time with, ahh… with Christine Bell [SWS CEO] and John Brennan [SWS Board member] and Ron Ward [SWS Chairman of Board]. You know, it was through the discussion that I had with them, that they agreed to go out for this second round of consultation. I think that was a very wise decision on their part; they didn’t need to do it. It wasn’t absolutely necessary, but they also recognized, ahh… that there had been, ahh… just doing the minimum advertising was not good enough in this case. But that was a situation that can, and is being, rectified at the moment.”[/i]

• Southern Waste Solutions:: Review of community C-cell queries underway

Fewer than 50 submissions have been received by Southern Waste Solutions during an extended
community engagement period initiated by the company last month to address community
queries about the C-cell proposal at Copping.

Southern Waste Solutions CEO Christine Bell said the community engagement period closed
yesterday and the company would now review the submissions received before preparing its own
submission to the EPA.

“Once we’ve undergone the review process, we will send our submission to the EPA along with a
database of all the questions we received from the community as well as our responses for their
records,” Ms Bell said.

“It has been a valuable process to listen to the community’s concerns about the proposal and we
feel that many initial fears have been allayed through this extended communication period.
“During September we held a public meeting, set up a website with background documentation,
issued regular Community Query updates to local community representatives and responded
directly to queries as we received them.

“One issue raised by a number of people was air quality monitoring and as a result we are now
examining the possibility of altering our monitoring program to include air emissions.

“We thank the community for its feedback and we will continue to provide regular updates
throughout the review process on our website at http://swstas.com.au.”