I write to you because of my growing concerns for the proposed pulp mill project in Northern Tasmania.
Aside from the project, which seems by all accounts the proponent’s only way to unload our native forest to a world that is intent on plantation pulp and without this mill the proponent would be stuck for a market for the huge volumes of native forest that sits on the Tasmanian docks, I have many concerns for the approval process and type of mill that the proponent desires to push onto the unsuspecting and mostly uninformed public.
For the last 14 months I have followed the process closely, read widely documentation from the RPDC (Resource Planning and Development Commission) and around the world and been engaged wherever and whenever I can.
Community input
Firstly, I am disappointed with the proponent and their distinct lack of community consultation, avoiding the mainstream public and only engaging with small groups comprised mainly of business and union members such as TRED, CA, PLANT etc. to satisfy the community consultation requirements of the guidelines.
Unless the groups offer unquestioning support to the proponent, they will only meet with groups of 5 or less.
Even the Government has offered no public forums, just expensive pro pulp mill propaganda.
No politicians have attended community sponsored forums to give input and answer community concerns.
It seems they have their own agenda and the community is excluded.
With a SLAPP suit against the so called “Gunns 20” announced to seemingly coincide with the revelation of Tasmania’s newest industrial project, it appears that the proponent wants any questions that may interfere with their project “iced”.
There has been a huge amount of documentation from the RPDC and the proponent concerning this project as you would expect, but it has been put to the public in a way that confuses the majority of the people.
The last public submission phase in November 2005 saw limited documentation available for comment. Those documents were not even delivered to some people and by the time the entire document arrived to me I had 14 days to read, decipher, collate, comment and return them to the RPDC.
The proponent’s final submission is said to be some 6000 pages and there is a rumoured 6 week timeline for public submissions.
This would make the document nearly two feet thick.
If this is the case, then this entire community consultation process will be a complete sham.
Community Sentiment
Since the pulp mill proposal was first announced the community has been trying to find answers to their questions.
With both major parties having unmitigated support for this now “Project of State Significance”, public monies to the tune of many millions of dollars have been given to this private venture for promotion and just recently sixty million dollars of public monies announced for the main road to the proposed pulp mill before the approval process is anywhere near completed.
There has been a major advertising campaign focussing on benefits real or imagined, with no questions raised concerning the negative impacts on people, health, the environment, sustainability and indeed other businesses that may be squashed by this undertaking that will alter Tasmania’s landscape forever.
Many who live near the site have given up, sold and left the state.
Others have not been able to do so and the toll on their lives is horrific.
I have seen people crying and people talking about actions that that have never entered their heads before.
It is most disturbing when both the government and the proponent are squarely to blame for the communities’ suffering and the ignorance and their steadfast lack of communication are disgraceful.
While people’s concerns are brushed aside as “Un-Tasmanian”, even the Federal Government seems hell bent on pushing second rate technology through (ECF) with a $5 million donation to the proponent when they were originally only going to support a TCF proposal.
The State Government’s “Pulp Mill Bus” toured the countryside extolling the virtues of this proposal, but in speaking to those who ran the “show”, they were ill informed themselves and were basically there to hand out balloons and glossy brochures.
An expert brought in from overseas told us how this mill would use lots of water, but that was not an issue in Tasmania he thought and then a week later that water supply for the proposed mill was under water restrictions.
The water source was subsequently changed to the Great Lake Catchment, now at about 30% capacity, the proponent citing environmental responsibility as the reason for the switch and subsequently the Meander Dam project fast tracked despite every report including the Government’s own, detailing the folly of such a venture.
Numerous experts and business men have described emissions from the proposed pulp mill as “being cleaner than fish tank water” and having more organochlorines in a bottle of red wine”.
Simplistic statements such as “we use chlorine everyday to treat salmonella” show a high level of lack of understanding of the pulp mill process and are treated with contempt within the community.
These statements are from those at the head of this project or those brought in to sing its praises.
All are highly paid and it seems will stop at nothing sell this proposal.
Our community representatives it seems are all for this proposal, but from my communication with these people, it is apparent that they are unaware of the fine print of the guidelines and legislation and are blindly charging forward with little or no thought of the future.
The Mill itself
ECF is outdated technology. It is as simple as that.
The damage to our people, flora and fauna, our heavily marketed, “Brand Tasmania” is in jeopardy.
Around the world pulp mills are closing left right and centre, they are becoming costly to run and the massive amount of environmental destruction and human suffering they cause sees them closing even in places like the Pulp Mill Task Forces’ much spruiked Finland.
Their ECF mills are now moving to third world economies like Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and if they have their way, Tasmania.
Botnia and their ilk are leading the steamroll process in these countries, but their “spin” has not completely succeeded thus far in Uruguay* with a case now before the world court in The Hague.
The proponents and the Government said early in their campaign to sell this project to the Tasmania public that the Tasmanian mill will be the “World’s greenest mill” and will only use “World’s latest technology”.
Those phrases have mysteriously disappeared from the propaganda machine.
Some simple questions need to be answered:
• If the proposed pulp mill’s liquid effluent is so clean, why dump it four kilometres into Bass Strait, why not dump it directly into the Tamar River?
• If it is only steam coming from the chimney of this proposed pulp mill, why do we need the tallest stack in Tasmania?
Common sense says that this is not a clean mill at all, but a massive polluter.
The RPDC says that dioxin is the most toxic man made substance.
By the RPDC’s own guidelines this mill is allowed to dump organochlorines, dioxins and furans into our environment.
By the Government’s own “Air Quality Act 2004” this proposed pulp mill is allowed unlimited dumping of Hydrogen Sulphide and Methyl Mercaptan into our atmosphere.
These are two horrible chemical compounds that have ominous links to adverse effects on humans.
Why would our government allow such a travesty and enshrine it in legislation?
The long term implications
30 billion litres of effluent containing some notoriously toxic chemicals released into an area of high diversity for the next 30-50 years defies all logic.
An atmospheric polluter with few restrictions in a valley prone to temperature inversions, a valley that was deemed unsuitable for the Wesley Vale mill proposal for that very reason, allowed to pollute indiscriminately is utter insanity.
Around 4.4 million tonnes of primarily native forest trashed each year to feed this mill, plus around 500,000 tonnes of green wood waste to be burnt each year to power this mill over the life expectantcy of this proposal will destroy Tasmania as we know it forever.
This tonnage will come on top of existing woodchip quotas and see the conversion of native biodiverse forests to green desert wastelands.
Finance
As the proponent’s fortune disappears the funding of this project becomes more difficult.
If pulp prices continue to decline, fuel prices continue to rise, where will that leave the state over the next 30 years or so?
Will we, like Uruguay*, be locked into a “bail out” of the proponent if the mill was built and it goes “belly up?”
Who would dream of funding such a folly in a state that has such a slow rate of “resource” growth compared to countries like South America?
Health and the clean up
With the RPDC’s guidelines allowing dumping of toxic chemicals and massive quantities of suspended solids into Bass Strait, and our Government allowing the dumping of airborne chemicals into the Tamar Valley Airshed, who will be affected?
The people of Greater Launceston including the Tamar Valley, all those who use the Tamar River and Bass Strait for leisure and pleasure, for income and for sustenance are right in the firing line.
Who will clean up the mess? Will our children and theirs be responsible for cleaning up these pollutants?
Who will bear the cost? Will it be our children and theirs?
What can you do
The future of our state is at stake. Our leaders have deserted us for big business. They need to be told that we want a state that we can be proud to pass to our children, not one that we have drained and trashed and bled dry, not a state where we have destroyed the inheritance or our children and taken what is for all future generations. We have no right to do these things.
We all have a right to question, a right to truthful and honest answers to these questions.
You must cut through all the spin and propaganda.
To learn more about pulp mills and this Tasmanian proposal is simple. Log on to www.tamar-trac.com
All the RPDC’s and the proponent’s documents are there for you to read and make up your own mind.
You don’t have to take my word for it or that of the proponent or the “spin doctors”; you can see it all for yourself.
You can investigate through internet search engines or ask your local representatives for information.
Whatever you do, don’t sit back and just wait for it all to unfold, if this pulp mill is ever built, it will be too late to complain about pollution, foul air and dirty water once it is up.
The time for action is now.
Dave Groves is (a bio is on its way)
