In the course of research on hazardous waste management in Tasmania I have encountered many comments by Mercury columnist Greg Barns. Some of these are so patronising I have decided they cannot be left unchallenged. Greg’s articles seem to be written off-the-cuff and contain inaccuracies and contradictions. So it is necessary from time to time to respond to a commentator, who has written for a monopoly paper for so long he has grown accustomed to there being few mechanisms through which he can be responded to.
Barns’ opinion piece in The Mercury on September 10, 2012 ( Here ) reads like it has been papraphrased from other similar articles in The Mercury and Southern Waste Solutions (SWS) brochure. World’s best practice they say. It most definitely is not. Treating waste before depositing it into a modern landfill design is world’s best practice. Not having adequate risk management strategies is not world’s best practice. The Copping site did not cope with recent rainfall (so it is lucky indeed that the C-cell had not yet been built). The road was washed away (hardly world’s best practice). Perhaps it is true to say that the design of the landfill is world’s best practice – but since landfill is not world’s best practice for hazardous waste management the statement is meaningless.
On January 4 The Tasmanian Fire Service advertised clear warnings about which areas would be impacted by the fires. Despite this advance warning, there was little staff could do at Copping other than simply abandon it and return a few days later to find some infrastructure was burned. Great plan guys! What effect would radiant heat and underground heat have on HDPE liners? This is a great deal hotter than the expected 20-40 degrees celsius that engineers do their figures on. The proponents have had very little to say about this. It is a bushfire-prone area and since I grew up on Mt Nelson, and bought my first home in Ferntree I know first hand that bushfire is not merely a once in a lifetime event. In any case, they need to keep the site fire free for a great deal longer than that.
I am not entirely opposed to landfill per se. But I will not support it whilst the waste is not treated to its lowest level before deposit. As I understand it plasma-arc gasification is capable of treating hazardous materials. All that is left is ash (which can be landfilled safely – unlike ash from incineration), clean water, power (1 ton of waste can produce enough energy to power a home for 2 months), slag (this is reduced to 1/250th of the original and is safe for constructing roads) and metal aggregate (which can be recycled). It can process a range of materials including (but not limited to), municipal solid waste (MSW), tyres, sludges, contaminated soil, steel, medical waste, low-level radioactive waste, asbestos containing material, pesticides, liquids, oil, metals, glass waste, ceramic waste, harbour sludges, solvents, paints and many more. There are plasma plants in Spain, China, Japan, the US and Canada (a very comparable nation) in towns with similar populations to Dodges Ferry/Carlton. This is not to be confused with incineration. There are no pollutant air emissions, no smokestack, it requires a tiny footprint compared to a C-cell, it is not noisy, reduces the amount of CO2 produced by landfill and can produce more than enough energy to power itself (and the rest of the Copping Refuse Site). There are 2 main disadvantages of plasma-arc technology:
1. There is some cost associated with setting it up and secondly but most importantly;
2. It would involve SWS changing its mind.
Secondly, I will not support a C-cell if waste can be redirected away from landfill in any other way. This is what The Landfill Sustainability Guide 2004 really means. It is legislated for in The European Directive, and the US EPA. Engineers also recommend that waste needs to be treated before it can be regarded as safely stored. And since we cannot perform these actions in Tasmania, it is not the right location for a C-cell. Despite what SWS and their brainwashed proponents will tell you – it is not a given that we need a hazardous waste landfill just because we do not have one. Entire countries such as Austria do not have them at all.
Barns says we ignore the science underpinning the design. If landfills are so secure why does the European Union Directive restrict substances (such as tyres) and prohibit others (such as infectious medical waste)? The only way to make an informed decision about this is to assess both sides of the argument by going directly to the source. At the science library at the University of Tasmania I did a search for landfill liner failures. After refining the search to peer reviewed journal articles after 1989 I got almost 1000 results, many of which dealt with similar designs and liners to that proposed by SWS. This is not cherry picking. I am opposed to the project on scientific grounds. Other searches produce results supporting the inadequacy of several aspects of the design including the leachate collection system, groundwater monitoring, risk management analysis, the difficulty of proving contamination and the difficulty of proving adverse health outcomes from contamination. Searches on hazardous waste management bring up numerous ways of managing hazardous waste which have little or nothing to do with landfill. Added to this (and outside the scope of engineering) are the tens of thousands of examples of contamination in which governments big and small all over the world refuse to admit anything because they are afraid of liability. And Barns shrieks on twitter that we must trust!
In truth he says the science and economics more than once. No surprises there. It is always about money isn’t it? This project has been imposed on a small unsuspecting community. The CEO has stated that the project was going ahead ‘come hell or high water’ so that hardly constitutes proper consultation since it wouldn’t have mattered what we said to her or the council – no one would have listened. The Council will financially benefit from this so IMO they are being used. At a special meeting of the Council on July 9 with members of Southern Beaches Conservation Society (SBCS) and interested individuals the lack of actual scientific knowledge was frightening. Council members frequently said ‘we were told….’ Not one of them referred to having read a single line. None had even read the Ecosure report detailing the discharge of stormwater runoff directly into the Carlton River. They didn’t even seem to know where to find it. They simply said Ms Bell had ‘told’ them there was no contamination of the Carlton River. They understood the economic side quite well though. Have they been blinded by dollar signs?
Barns also arrogantly states that the advertisement about the C-cell ‘quite clearly states…’. It is naive and narrow-minded in the extreme to expect Southern Tasmanians to be reliant on the Murdoch press anymore when there are a variety of better-quality options online. In any case, until recently I did not know what a Category C-cell was. This is not something that people should be ‘expected’ to know (such as laws etc) and the advertisement would have been meaningless to me – had I seen it. It would have been a different matter had the advertisement mentioned hazardous waste. And the idea that I can simply follow the instruction in their own advertisement and read their cherry picked data to find all the information I need is also ridiculous. The advertisement also asks us to pay for some of it. In an e-mail from Christine Bell (to me) she admits the advertisement was not enough and she often didn’t read the classifieds either. It is unrealistic to expect otherwise.
Greg asserts that it is untrue that the project deals were done behind ‘closed doors’. This appears to be from an article in The Mercury on August 24 2012. He completely ignores the fact that later in the article the CEO admits they didn’t want to publicly admit it until it was sure to go ahead. She also told SBCS that she had tried to keep the site itself a secret. Perhaps he should have sat down with Ms Bell before he wrote his article so that they could get their stories straight. The notice of intent was submitted to the EPA in January 2012. The advertisement in the classifieds was placed in April. Our local member for Lyons – Rebecca White didn’t know until April and nor did Tim Morris (Greens member for Lyons). These are the facts and they reveal the truth. That is exactly how ‘clear’ this all was Greg – clear as mud. It is true that the law does not require a social licence to proceed, but it is argued here that the law is inadequate and to make little attempt to get one from the community may be a significant factor in their failed application for funds from Regional Development Australia which required significant community support. A leading question for a survey run by ‘The Mercury’ in which you could vote as many times as you like was a joke and Bell merely makes herself look unprofessional referring to such surveys.
Incidentally, since the proposed rezoning of the site from Rural to Interim Utility, Ms Bell has said that there are no plans to develop another C-cell. This is in complete contradiction to the statement she gave to The Mercury on August 24, 2012 in which she says that profits from the C-cell would go into developing another C-cell. So which is it? These are just some of the reasons why it would not be wise to blindly trust. What I do trust is that big business would be more than happy to take the cheap way out and deposit their waste in a nearby landfill. After all – one business said that they would be requesting Ms Bell sign a waiver absolving them of any liability once the waste enters the gate. From their point of view this is a sensible course of action since they know there is some risk associated with the landfill. There are a host of things that can go wrong – some of which SWS may have no control over. Cheap options are often offered to business and they are prioritised over the health of small and relatively powerless communities such as those surrounding Copping. Again – it is about money. And if it is true that we must take responsibility for our waste then where does it say that Copping, Dodges Ferry and Carlton should shoulder the entire responsibility (and subsequent risk) for the whole state?
Barns refers to us as uneducated. An egalitarian country like Australia does not need such intellectual snobbery. It is patronising to say the least. Where does it say you must have a university degree to object to the C-cell and is this why it has been imposed on us? It is true to say that many people are ignorant of the scientific issues surrounding C-cells but it is not a simple matter. Most of the objections are grounded in science and there are literally hundreds of thousands of articles and reports to wade your way through before anyone can make an informed decision. When SWS submitted their application to the Council it was submitted electronically primarily due to the large volume of material in relation to the C-cell (and that was their data alone) The statutory process allows for one month to object. And if it is not done on scientific grounds it is ignored. One month is not nearly long enough to do this. The statutory process is wholly inadequate.
Barns tweets that we should trust the Government. This is laughable coming from a Human Rights lawyer. What work would there be left for him to do if we could trust the Government.? Furthermore, the project is being managed by Southern Waste Solutions – a joint authority of four councils – not the state Government. If he is suggesting that we trust Bell and Brennan then perhaps he did not listen to the radio interview with Leon Crompton on ABC radio in September last year. For example, the last caller Karen rings up and asks if she has contacted the owners of the property closest to the proposed c-cell and what were their views? Ms Bell says she had contacted them and they were satisfied. Karen informs her that she is the owner of the house (2.4km away) and she has not been contacted and is not satisfied. It was this show that first set off alarm bells in my head. If the project is so scientifically sound then why were we all being lied to. It is immediately after Karen has been cut off here that Brennan (the technical adviser) repeats the ‘trust’ manta. Since Brennan is associated with Antarctic waste management and on the Board of Management for SWS I believe there is a clear conflict of interest here.
In the course of the radio program Bell says that Melbourne has a C-cell and they ‘cope’. The landfill design of the C-cell at Tullamarine is not the same as that proposed, but she raised it. Since reports show that nearby groundwater has become contaminated (as has the river) and residents have, on more than one occasion, called in the Cancer Council to investigate cancer clusters – in the words of Sybil Fawlty to Basil I think we ‘can do without that sort of coping don’t you?…mmmmh?’
Barns tweets that we are bunch of NIMBYS – Not in my backyard is a perfectly legitimate course of action. ‘Think globally; act locally’ goes the adage. So when we follow this advice we are criticised for it. Of course we are going to object to potentially toxic waste being stored in our community. Our health (or more than likely our children’s health) is at stake – not yours. So what exactly is wrong with not in my backyard? Shallowly devised acronyms are not a valid criticism. They are meaningless. I can think of a few acronyms that might apply to Greg Barns too, but none of these would bear close examination either and are of no use in intelligent debate. It would not be possible to take on every landfill in the world. It is sensible to stick to issues that directly affect you as the individual. In any case, many of the letters I collected to deliver to The Regional Development Fund were from outside the Sorell Municipality so it isn’t even necessarily a statement of fact.
Incidentally, I do not always disagree with Barns. We are in agreement on issues such as The Magiris, GM food (both on scientific grounds), asylum seekers, and drug laws being a medical problem not a criminal one. I am not the protesting type – I have never been a member of any protest group. I am not anti-everything. I am driven by science and the science behind this does not stack up and the engineers themselves admit it. I am not happy to rely on information given by people such as Barns, Brennan and Bell. I was raised in a family of academics who taught me never to rely on such data. It is nothing more than a rumour. The University also taught me to think scientifically and not to listen to arguments proposed by commentators such as Barns (who admits to having been a waste adviser on the side of business) and what does he really know about waste anyway? Perhaps this issue is just not trendy enough for Barns.
I have included a paragraph on plasma-arc gasification so I can sit back afterwards and see who it is that really ignores modern science. Peter Boyer has recently written an article on gasification to energy with biomass. This goes one step further. Of course plasma-arc is expensive to set up but that is ok it aptly demonstrates the real motives of commentators such as Barns and SWS. Plasma-arc gasification would make us the real gateway to Antarctica – not just the ‘dump’ at the end of it. As for Barns, Bell and Brennan they shriek ‘trust, trust, trust’ like a pack of seagulls. Who’s shrieking now Greg?
All about Sarah Taylor: I didn’t take too kindly to being called uneducated on this issue because I have had two articles published in journals (one of which I presented to a Baltic States Conference in Adelaide on environmentalism and the fall of communism and the second I presented to the Launceston Historical Society on Tasmanian Aboriginal Identity). I graduated from UTAS in 1997 and won a scholarship in my Honours (Sociology) year so it is a matter of pride in being told I ignore science. I also completed about half an economics degree. When I sold my house at Ferntree it was for a sea change and I currently work part-time in tourism/accommodation which is why it is so important to me that the environment remains uncontaminated. I do not want to don a suit and negotiate the traffic to town every day.
