Wightman and O’Byrne must act to give EPA teeth

The Tasmanian Public and Environmental Health Network (TPEHN) has today called on Environment Minister Brian Wightman and the Health Minister Michelle O’Byrne to instruct the EPA Director Alex Schaap to implement new licence conditions for best practice emission standards for all of Tasmania’s polluting industries.

On the ABC 7.30 Report last Friday night, Professor Mark Taylor, Australia’s leading lead expert revealed that the MMG Rosebery Mine is operating under outdated licence emissions standards. Under the current MMG licence, the mine can emit 1.5ug/cubic metre of lead which is three times the volume of lead emissions in the standard applied by the Queensland government to Mt Isa Mines.

Alex Schaap told journalist Linda Hunt that the ‘National Environment Protection Measure level for lead — of 0.5 ug/cubic metre — is not a regulatory limit, but a standard regulators should seek to achieve’.

Isla MacGregor said ‘Alex Schaap’s comments are just not good enough coming from the head of Tasmania’s so-called independent environmental watchdog. Apparently he has no intention of regulating an appropriate standard for lead emissions, and better protecting the health of mining town residents’.

‘Continuing to allow polluting industries to operate under outdated emission standards is putting people’s health and possibly their lives at risk’.

‘Currently the EPA regulates over 600 high hazard polluting industries in Tasmania and TPEHN has received numerous reports about the EPA notifying polluters prior to arriving for inspection of facilities. In addition the EPA only manages to inspect these high hazard facilities about once a year’.

‘This is totally unacceptable. It is allowing industries to get away with whatever they can’.

‘TPEHN has been told by a number of employees that some polluting industries are manipulating their sampling schedules to ensure lower figures are recorded for reporting of emissions data’.

The EPA needs to immediately update the MMG Rosebery Mine licence conditions to bring emission standards up to par with those applied to Mt Isa Mines’.

‘We have a serious crisis within our EPA over regulation of polluters in Tasmania and Brian Wightman and Michelle O’Byrne need to take immediate and decisive action to give the EPA the teeth and resources it needs to protect public and environmental health’, said Isla MacGregor.

Isla MacGregor, Tasmanian Public and Environmental Health Network