The sad thing about this farce is that eventually the mill if it is ever built will become a white elephant and the so-called economic benefits are a mirage.
We are in entering the final phase of peak oil and as it tightens its grip so will the world economy fall off a cliff starting with the US.
Food prices are in lock step with the price of oil and will shoot up with the oil price.
http://prudentinvestor.blogspot.com/2011/01/chart-of-day-oil-prices-vs-food-prices.html
It will mean the end of the dinosaur logging industry here in Tasmania, which will not survive skyrocketing fuel prices, and it means that there will be no market for millions of tons of pulp either.
The investment and effort that has and is still going into this environmental disaster would be better spent preparing Tasmania for the downturn we are going to face.
A properly working and perhaps faster rail system, to replace the constant stream of trucks shuttling backwards and forwards would be a start. It would also provide employment for some of the displaced forestry workers.
Also it would provide affordable travel to replace the private car.
Some of the workforce could be retrained to work in agriculture because it is going to become a lot more labour intensive as fuel supplies are priced out of reach and we will need the food.
Some might be diverted to the alternative energy industry, which is the only option to hydro as the dams dry up.
We have ample wind for some of this and more than our fair share of sites for wave power.
We will not be able to depend on tourism as an income earner unless we can find tourists that will brave a Bass Strait crossing by sea. The present inane shuttling to and fro at a ridiculously low cost will change to rich and government travelers only.

So, it didn't sink completely, this sorrowful decison that points at everything rotten and corrupt that is the cancer killing our culture.
What servile filth to the masters, the ALP have become.

When will online opinion stop publishing poorly researched articles from this author? This one is riddled with errors; a flawed claim is made in just about every paragraph.

But let’s just look at one: that "Tony Burke bent over backwards ... and approved a pulp mill that will pollute the Bass Straight and destroy the fishing industry."

The original Commonwealth permit conditions ensure that there effluent will not contain significant pollution; Minister Burke's current approval reduces this insignificant level to a minute % of the treated waste water.

He knows this because the developer was forced to undertake two years worth of modelling and testing overseen by an Independent Expert Group. This group issued its report to the Minister available at http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/gunns/pubs/attachment-f.pdf . The experts advised "The results of the modelling showed that the effluent would be expected to be diluted by a significant order of magnitude over the limits provided for in the approval conditions. In these circumstances there is little risk of unexpected environmental impacts particularly on the Commonwealth marine environment."

This independent expert group includes Professor Helene Marsh, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University. Helene was also a member of the wilderness society's Wildcountry panel and is internationally renowned for her work on the conservation of dugongs.

Not only will there be no adverse impact on the marine environment, there will be no impact on commercial fishing, as the ABC made similar false claims. The ABC published at http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1943347.htm this correction:
‘In October 2007, the video with this item was removed after it was found the original broadcast gave the false impression that there is a current scallop industry operating in Bass Strait that may be at risk from the proposed pulp mill. Although scallop fishing has taken place in the area in the past, there are currently no commercially viable scallop beds available in the area. The situation is being regularly monitored. A graphic labelled ‘Dioxin Contamination Theory’ was also found to be inaccurate. This note on corrective action was updated in July 2008”

Will OLO also offer a correction?

CINDY: It all depends on your view of 'facts': it is a fact that the mill will have less impact on commonwealth waters than state, therefore Burke could accept it as he was only assessing commonwealth waters. It is also a fact that as the project bypassed all state assessments, we have no idea what full impact of the effluent will be on state waters.

For a fact that even Gunns don't dispute, this mill will put "endocrine disruptors" into our ocean. They cause infertility and make males change to females. To me, that rates as serious pollution as it could result in survival problems for some species. Also, as big fish eat the little fish, they get a higher concentration - ending up with the species which is highest in the food chain which is often human. As these chemicals are banned in other more intelligent countries, this means our export market will shrink.

So just because a minister has approved a project, does not mean that project will have no impact, or even no significant impact. It just means we have shortsighted ministers, only concerned about today, who think tomorrow can look after itself.

I note that the writer is both a Film Maker ( fantasy, I assume ) and a "novellist" a fiction writer in other words.

This piece is exactly that ..FICTION.

He claims "ownership" of all Tasmanians with the first paragraph.. treats the Timber Workers as Idiots.. chucks around any old ( fictional) statistics he likes.. 90% , 25% etc as well as the emotive 294 jobs to people mainly from overseas.Further , he abuses the Minister, because the Minister did not agree with the writers views.

This article is NOT of the standard that one normally hopes to see in OLO.

The writer should stick to his fantasy and fiction calling.. leave non-fiction to the Grown Ups.

Incidentally I am oppsed to the Mill, I strongly detest the Timber Trucks AND I live in Northern Tasmania.

As for his statement wherein Green MHA for Bass, Kim Booth has threaten that the Greens will bring down Tassie Labor if the original Bill isn't repealed... Oh Please, Kim , go for it !

It's just that this type of Article serves no useful purpose whatsover .

"The health risk assessment has identified that the pulp mill effluent will have a negligible impact on seafood and human health" Gunns Ltd

"The plan now specifies that Gunns will only use plantation timber for the pulp mill and a bleaching process that uses less chlorate than first was proposed. " Tony Burke's press release 10-3-11

Oh that's OK then, it's only going to be a "negligible" amount of dioxin, one of the most toxic substances known. Cinders and Burke will put all our minds at ease by administering a "negligible" amount of dioxin to themselves and the fruit of their loins to prove how safe it is?

Not too hard to see this bloke writes fiction, just read his article, & you can see imagination all over it.

A whole lot of passion in this article, to be certain, but not much effort made to back up his claims.

Not that I'm a fan of Gunns, by any means, but just spraying a whole lot of claims doesn't make them true.

For instance, 'log trucks, already responsible for 25% of all fatalities on Tasmania's roads'. I'd like to see some evidence for this, for one. Is the author counting all accidents involving log trucks, whether the log truck was 'responsible' or not?

'In recent polls it was established that almost 90% of Tasmanians do not want a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley'. Again, source?

Not only has the Independent Expert Panel confirmed the pulp mill’s effluent to be safe, so too has other scientific assessments of modern pulp mills. The CSIRO has issued a statement on ECF, the World Bank ESH guidelines, US EPA, the investigation on ECF by the RPDC consultants and the results from operating mills including those that converted in the 1990’s and ones commissioned in the last few years consistently show that there is negligible risk to the environment and human health including from such things as dioxins, endocrine disruptors or chlorinated compounds.

In fact the change from chlorine to ECF seems to have been one of the major environmental achievements of the late 20th Century.

The current ECF pulp mill in Victoria already discharges its treated effluent into Bass Strait, monitoring has shown no impact.

The Tasmanian permit conditions also ensure the environment is safeguarded be it in the supply of raw water for the mill, visual impact, air pollution or the myriad of concerns raised by the greens.

However none this stops outrageous claims like those raised by a Four Corners a few years back that brought this response on “Particulate Matter” worries.

Dr Peter Manins, Senior Research Scientist, Marine and Atmospheric Research, CSIRO: I’ve seen a fair bit of press that’s frankly just scaremongering. The best modelling data that we’ve seen and can do is that there won’t be an issue in Launceston at all due to the pulp mill. Launceston’s got far more concern, should have far more concern over the local domestic wood heaters and motor cars and smoking. They are far more important issues ... in Launceston than this pulp mill, 36 kilometres away.

There have also been claims that house prices would fall, yet the house of actor Rebecca Gibney just sold for over a $1 million http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/03/10/213091_real-estate-news.html just 5 km from the mill site at the Bell Bay Heavy Industrial Zone, not bad when she bought it for $650,000. According to recent sale figures the median house price in the neighbourhood increased by 100% since the pulp mill announcement in 2004

Cinders, do you have a real name? I have obviously hit a raw nerve for you to make such claims about my work. It is easy to sit in an office and quote reports. Your desktop is likely filled with them. Come outside and smell the roses, before the pulp mill destroys your senses. This is an island famous for fine foods and beautiful scenery. It has a tourism industry that employs up to 40,000 people. It has a farming industry that employs around 8,000 people. Those two industries alone are under threat from an industry that employs less than 2,000 people. This is also an industry with no future. The Chinese have played it like a fiddle for years, stripping the value from the timber. The only reasons for building this pulp mill is to try and get a bit more value from a resource that is spiralling downwards. The world is getting over paper and especially paper generated from trees. Carbon tax will wipe this industry out in months, once introduced. The mill is dead, give it a burial and move on.

Look at the facts:
The mill proposal was a shonky little agreement between Lennon & Gay, fixed up over a dinner in a city restaurant.

It was forced through the parliament by a majority government without the proper investigation being completed, because it was realized that it would not meet the parameters that were applied.

The government heavily subsidized it when the profits (if any) will go to shareholders.

It does not meet with the approval of a majority of Tasmanians and if a referendum were held on it (shock, horror) it would fail.

The benefits of huge employment prospects are in the realms of fantasy and will not be forthcoming.

The environmental impact is not good to say the least.

It will add a heavy impact on the road users and the roads themselves, with no cost to Gunns.

It will use scarce water resources in large quantities that could go to growing food crops in an era of shortages and dependence on Asian countries.

If it had been planned on a smaller scale, not the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. In a more environmentally suitable site and had not been the grandiose dreams of a man since ousted by his own board, it would have been up and running by now.

What biased load of rubbish and outright falsehoods. The mill will not be sequestering Launceston's water...most the city's water is not from the Trevallyn Dam (which belongs to Hydro Tasmania) but from St Patrick's river. Log trucks are not involved in a quarter of all fatal vehicle accidents and to quote that as fact is a blatant lie. Only a small minority of residents in the Tamar Valley are enraged and it is of note that the Federal seat of Bass, where the mill is sited, at the last election went from marginal ALP to safe ALP. The ALP are well known for fully supporting the mill. It is also forgetten that at the 2007 state election, the first contested with the mill as an issue, Bass Greens member Kim Booth (a vociferous opponent of the mill) almost lost his seat and only held on due to preferences. There is great support for the mill to be built and inject much needed cash into a stagnant economy and provide much needed employment. It shows how desperate the anti-mill brigade are getting when they resort to having published complete lies.

That's the way cinders, wheel out the mercenary "science". Maybe you'd like to invite me onto a community consultative panel and fill my pockets with urine while you're at it? Been there, done that.

No thanks, as I said, I'll relax when you demonstrate the safety of a "negligible" dose of dioxin by self administering one.

http://www.ejnet.org/dioxin/