The Tamar valley from Brady's Lookout. (All images of the Tamar valley were taken by the author and can be used without permisssion for any purpose)
This site has been set up in response to the proposal to site a Kraft pulp mill at LONGREACH on the Tamar river, an area of great natural scenic beauty with a population of 100,000 people, instead of at HAMPSHIRE, an unpopulated area surrounded by vast forests. This website has no connection with any political party or with the Wilderness Society. The site has now been following this saga for two years.
LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES.**********IF YOU LIVE IN THE TAMAR VALLEY OR LAUNCESTON YOU NEED TO READ THIS SITE**********
At the start of the approval process, Gunns Ltd, the State Government and the Federal Minister of the Environment all agreed that an independent RPDC would decide if the proposal to build a pulpmill at Longreach was acceptable. In January 2007 two members of the RPDC panel resigned blaming State Government interference. One of those resignations was pulpmill expert and scientist Dr. Warwick Raverty. Dr. Raverty has since had this to say about the proposal: The mandatory emission limit guidelines have been set on the basis that any pulpmill is located well away from a population centre. Longreach is an atrocious location for a pulpmill because of the already polluted airshed (8 people a year die prematurely because of it) and the presence of the city of Launceston close by. Bad smells and noxious gases are also likely to be a problem. Dr. Raverty says that the RPDC wrote to Gunns Ltd on numerous occasions asking them to move it to Hampshire but Gunns have refused as it would be slightly more expensive. Dr. Raverty also said that only a pulpmill that was at least as clean as Stendal in Germany would be acceptable to the RPDC. Stendal was completed in 2004 and cost $1.7bn and it is much smaller than Longreach, is built on a flat site with easy access to water supply unlike Longreach which will need to built into the side of a hill and the water piped 40kms. Mercer, the firm that built Stendal, received a huge government subsidy. Gunns Ltd are very unlikely to be able to afford to build a Stendal without a subsidy. And so it has proved. Gunns pulled out of the RPDC process in March 2007 and a fast-track assessment put in place by the State Government. The new assessment process has been watered down so much as to be virtually meaningless. The consultant will be allowed 5 weeks to assess this huge project. It does not have to abide by the guidelines anymore. All public input past, present and future has been removed. All legal avenues to take action have been blocked in Tasmania - but there are now two Federal court challenges. The State Government rort of this whole process is so breathtakingly blatant that you wonder how they can possibly get away with it. And now it has emerged that the RPDC were going to write to Gunns to tell them their latest information was defective and the State Government stopped them so interfering in a lawful process. Gunns, having been told that their latest information was going to be rejected, withdrew from the process and was rewarded with a lesser assessment. What's more the Premier kept the fact secret and Parliament discussed and voted on it without full disclosure of information!
The SWECO assessment has turned out to be invalid as it clearly states on page 16 that it makes the assumption that 'the limits are appropriate for protecting the receiving environment and were not required to be reviewed'. But the limits were reviewed by the RPDC as the original 2004 guidelines were written on the assumption that the mill would be built in a remote location not in a valley where 100,000 people live. But on the same page it states that the guidelines used were the 2004 guidelines not the updated RPDC project scope guidelines - so the whole assessment is INVALID. Nevertheless, the State Government are treating it as if it is the holy grail!
The ITS Global report has used data that is 6 years old from the 2001 census to justify the mill construction. The latest 2006 census shows a very different position with low unemployment, population growing and a looming shortage of labour. The ITS Global report is therefore INVALID as well.
TASMANIA'S STUNNING TAMAR VALLEY - click here for picture tour
CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT EXISTING PULP MILLS LOOK LIKE THE DANGERS OF CHLORINE AND DIOXINS:
Gunns propose to use a process that is not accepted modern technology (AMT) to produce the bleaching agent chlorine dioxide.
Nearly every ECF pulpmill in the World buys sodium chlorate and uses it to make chlorine dioxide. Not so Gunns - they propose
to use brine (salt in water), using electrolysis to split the sodium chloride into chlorine and sodium hydroxide (which is used later in the process).
The chlorine is then used to make chlorine dioxide. This has two potential problems: The first is that chlorine gas has to be stored on
site and if an accident occured the potential for death and destruction is huge as chlorine is a heavier than air
gas that is poisonous to all living creatures (but Gunns say that it will be only generated as required). The second problem is that the process to convert chlorine to chlorine dioxide leaves
residual chlorine. If the residual chlorine is above 2% then dioxins form. This, apart from the obvious health hazards, would break
the international agreement on dioxins 'The Stockholm Convention'. The RPDC said they would accept the process if Gunns could show figures
from other pulp mills that the process kept the chlorine below 2% but Gunns instead produced a declaration from a marketing manager
from a plant in Quebec, not a pulpmill, that uses this process. There are two problems here - one is that the Quebec plant has 50 years
experience whilst Gunns will be novices. The second is that Gunns will also be running a massive pulpmill as well as the chlorate plant. One accidental release of dioxins could financially ruin Tasmania's lucrative
fishing industry worth more than $400m. a year.
7/7/2007: According to the Examiner, Gunns have now decided not to use this process but there has been no 'hard copy' confirmation of this change of heart.
The aim of this site is to provide a one stop guide to all the issues. Is it really World's best practice? Will it smell badly and, if so, how far will it spread? What effect will it have on the air quality in the valley? How will it affect log truck movements? What about the effects of the effluent on Bass Strait and the Tamar river? Find out about the water supply to the mill. Will it produce more fogs and smogs? Will the noise from the mill during construction and operation affect residents and will the visual aspect of the mill put off tourists? What about possible health effects of the mill? Is the logging sustainable and will it result in loss of wildlife? Is there a danger from accidents at the mill? Is the decision to build it at Longreach justified and finally, is it a good financial deal for Gunns Ltd and the Tasmanian people? Or you can go straight to the final verdict for a brief summary of all the points discussed.
***RECENT ADDITIONS TO THIS SITE***
Youtube video link - above
Analysis of SWECO and ITS Global reports - in latest news section
Water audit of South Esk river - in water section
Moriarty Reach on the Tamar - the mill will be built just round the corner.
This site incorporates the RPDC FINAL PROJECT SCOPE, NTD study tour, Integrated Impact Statement (IIS), peer reviews commissioned by the RPDC and various submissions to the RPDC.
The Tamar Estuary as viewed from Kayena - this is Devil's Elbow.
We shall be looking at and commenting on the issues and what Gunns Ltd and CEO John Gay have said (or haven't said) in their promotional material on the mill, in the media and their proposals to the RPDC and the Federal Government. Also what the RPDC say in their guidelines and what the pulp mill taskforce says. Relevant links and newspaper articles are included and updated as they appear. All the information on this site is accurate as far as the author has been able to ascertain but the comments represent the views of the author only. You can check out the Gunns Ltd and anti-pulpmill Tasmanian Times websites at the links below:
Gunns official pulp mill website
Tasmanian Times Internet Newspaper
TAP (Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill) have a website:
'Tasmanians against the pulpmill' website
IFT (Investors for the future of Tasmania) have a website:
'Investors for the future of Tasmania' website
If you interested in following developments in this debate then the Hobart Mercury gives excellent coverage and you can check the Tasmanian news every day on the following link:
Hobart Mercury state newsGunns Ltd Integrated Impact Statement (IIS) was released on 14/7/2006 (about a year after it was originally promised). It is 7500 pages long! The mill will take 26 months to construct. Information in the IIS, comments on it and further news/developments appears on this site in this bold brown format to make it easy to locate. The RPDC have commissioned several independent peer reviews of the IIS and these have highlighted that there are some very serious issues that need to be more fully explained by Gunns.
Letters to this website - please write with your views
The author would like to thank the many people who have written to this site expressing support and also those that either pointed out errors or sent in material to place on the site or help in its maintainance. This topic is obviously something that a lot of people feel strongly about.
This map shows where the mill is to be built - note the close proximity of local residents.
THE ISSUES
According to opponents of the mill, the following issues need to be addressed. They say..................
* We were promised World's best practice but what is proposed
falls well short
* It will create a rotten egg stink right up the Tamar valley
affecting tourism
* It will add to air pollution in the valley already at times
the worst in Australia
* It will double the number of log trucks in the north
* It will take an unsustainable amount of water out of an area that can ill afford to lose it
* It will increase fogs and smogs in the Tamar valley
* There will be increased noise pollution especially during construction
* It will be an eyesore that will ruin the valley and put tourists off visiting
* It will result in increased illness and deaths in the area
* Working at the pulp mill will entail health risks
* In the event of an industrial accident local residents and/or the Tamar River would suffer
* The mill should be built at Hampshire where most of these problems will not occur
* The mill will be risky financial venture and may turn out to be an expensive white elephant
GUNNS LTD SAY THAT THESE EMOTIVE CLAIMS ARE INCORRECT
Pulp mills are very necessary. Without them we would have no paper. It makes economic sense to have a pulp mill in Tasmania because we export a lot of wood chips. If we can process these into wood pulp we can sell it at a much higher price and reduce the amount that Australia imports from abroad. A pulp mill will provide 292 permanent skilled jobs (77 salaried, 215 paid by the hour) and other economic benefits for Tasmania. However, the Northern Tasmanian Development Group study tour in March 2006 found there were no new businesses that could claim to have sprung up as a result of the new pulp mill in Stendal, Germany and a calculation by Jose Koopmans at Veracel, Brazil, questioned whether there was any net gain of jobs at all.
There are various types of pulp mill but 75% of the World's mills are elemental chlorine-free Kraft mills using Chlorine dioxide. The technology is improving all the time. All mills built now are ECF or totally chlorine free (TCF). Some are closed loop which means that there is no liquid effluent, just some treated water which can be used for irrigation - these closed loop millsalso require much less water to run but create more solid waste.
You can have a look at the issues as listed in the questions above or just click below:
TASMANIA'S STUNNING TAMAR VALLEY - click here for pictures and information
Interesting factual letters will be displayed on the site. Please indicate if you do not wish your letter to appear.
LETTERS SENT TO THIS SITE:
Information on Chlorine Dioxide Cl2O2
Chlorine dioxide is a highly poisonous, unstable, heavier than air gas that
is yellow in
appearence. It is too unstable to transport so is manufactured on site.
It is used as the main bleaching agent in the pulp mill. Exposure may well
be fatal. If
an accident resulted in an escape the gas would flow down onto the Tamar and
on
contact with water turn into hydrochloric acid. A major fish kill would result.
Chlorine dioxide is too unstable to hang around for long in the environment
but
unfortunately some of the compounds produced when it reacts do - they are called
dioxins. During the bleaching process, chlorates are produced which can harm marine plants.
If dioxins accumulate in the food chain in even small concentrations then
cancers and
birth defects may result.
Any dioxins produced by this mill will be discharged into Bass Strait about
8kms
from the mouth of the Tamar.
