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.