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The Forum > Article Comments > Myth busting - the Gunns pulp mill > Comments

Myth busting - the Gunns pulp mill : Comments

By Alan Ashbarry, published 31/8/2007

The Gunns pulp mill - just what is fact and what is fiction?

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"Around the world pulp mills, vineyards and tourism happily coexist. They do so in British Columbia..."

I live near a pulp mill on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Though 90 million was recently put into pollution controls, we still suffer with poor air quality and ash fallout from the boilers that contaminates the surrounding areas' soil with dioxins and furans. Tourists are disgusted with the visual and air pollution and the food produced on soils has never been examined for dioxin contamination. To save the industry money in its waste management, the toxic sludge and fly ash from the pollution controls is now being landspread on public farm, forest and watershed lands throughout BC completely unregulated by our government.
Posted by Islander, Saturday, 1 September 2007 2:08:23 AM
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"As parasites we were conceived, and as parasites we will miserably die when we kill off the parent organism."
Actually most parasites don't kill their hosts.

"The arithmetic allows us to estimate an average daily release of about 16 kg of mercury and 64 kg of cadmium, two heavy metals which accumulate in the food chain and affect the safety of marine fish as food."
You might want to check you arithmetic it is out by a factor of 1000. That should be 16g and 64g per day.

"The remarks above about dioxins in antarctic penguins demonstrate that simple models can fall short of adequate explanations - and predictions."
The remarks weren't about dioxins, they were about POP's. Not sure what the POP level of penguins has to do with this article. The dioxin levels put out by this plant are miniscule.

Seems to be a lot of very emotive (rather than fact based) misgivings about the proposed pulp mill. NIMBYism is also alive and well. If we are prepared to log the timber, chip it and send it on large boats overseas to be put through a pulp mill somewhere else, then I don't think you can argue against a pulp mill on our shores. Think of the greenhouse gases you will save by removing the transportation component of woodchips to a far off country. I won't even mention the economic stupidity of not having a pulp mill in our country as most people on OLO equate economics with evil. You guys should really be arguing against the logging of old growth forests and not wasting your time on the pulp mill.
Posted by alzo, Saturday, 1 September 2007 7:40:31 AM
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"the net social and economic benefit for Tasmania was assessed as “positive and high”. The mill will add 2.5 per cent to Gross State Product and about $6.7 billion to the economy over the life of the project."

and how much will the shareholders/ owners of Gunns stand to make over the life of the project?
and what is it realistically and HONESTLY going to cost the taxpayer over the life of the project?

corporate greed only has one word in it's vocab .... PROFIT.
at any cost .... PERIOD.

cheers v.
p.s. has anybody noticed that the 21st century thus far, is a cess pit of absolute insanity ....?
Posted by virtual, Saturday, 1 September 2007 8:32:49 AM
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Yes, my arithmetic is mistaken, and easily checked:

1 microgram per litre
= 1 microgram per kilogram
= 1 milligram per Tonne
= 1 gram per 1000 Tonnes

so 64,000 Tonnes per day of effluent gives 64 grams cadmium + 16 g mercury per day released.

And I regret any consequences of the error I made.

I expect that the proponents generally got their arithmetic right, but I wonder if their assumptions are so easily checked?

And I wonder if any apologies will be forthcoming, in the event that they result in accurate arithmetic giving answers that are wrong?

My guess is that we Tasmanians will be paying for the consequences of the proponents mistakes,with our time, money and quality of life.

Even the stockholders may suffer!
Posted by Sir Vivor, Saturday, 1 September 2007 10:10:20 AM
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It seems more myths need to be busted.

No old growth forest (as defined by the Commonwealth and State Governments in the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement) will be used as feed stock for this mill refer to all the Developers public statements and EPBC Impact statement.

Forest giants are protected in Tasmania, together with one million hectares of old growth reserved under the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement. The mills wood will come from low conservation value regrowth forest and plantations.

The mill makes pulp suitable for fine writing paper, other pulp mills around Australia make essential pulp based products such as tissues, packaging, cartons, hygienic products and newspapers. This mill is looking at a high value added market.

Seems misquoting the order of magnitude has also been a problem (as the maths can be daunting) that has been feature of the public debate. In relation to the Mercury and cadmium, Dr Drew’s report quoted importantly compares effluent loads against guideline values. His report details how and which health authority sets these values that protect the environment, marine species and human health. An extract (without footnotes) is produced below for those not wanting to download the whole report from the Pulp mill’s web site (apologies for the lack of columns and the symbol for the tiny amount of grams

Table A2.3: Comparison with adopted guidelines for protection of aquatic organisms
Substance Effluent-concentration-(ug/L) Back
ground
(ug/L) Effluent
concentration after dilution,-DV100 (ug/L)a, g Adopted-Guideline-Value-(EGV)-(95%)-(ug/L) Quotient (DV100 ÷ GV)
Metals
Cadmium 0.98 0.0 0.0098 0.7 0.01
Mercury 0.25 0.0002 0.0027 0.1 0.027
Posted by cinders, Saturday, 1 September 2007 10:22:44 AM
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Alzo

As per usual, you peddle misinformation. Dioxins are POP's. POP's stands for Persistent Organic Pollutants and dioxins are one of the 12 "dirty dozen" listed as POP's and set down for effective control by WHO.

Australia ratified the Stockholm Convention to "control, reduce or eliminate" discharges, emissions and losses to the environment of POP's." The deadline for signatories to adhere to this edict is 2008. I see no action as yet by Australian regulators to alert pollutant companies to this edict.

Gunns appear to have proposed limits on the amount of dioxins permitted to atmosphere, however, with the current reporting procedures in Australia, I do not believe that dioxins can be effectively controlled.

Islander. Canada is also a signatory to the convention. Spreading fly ash, a known substance for a resting place for dioxins, is totally irresponsible. This practice is also carried out in Australia and is added to potting mix, soil improvers etc by the agricultural industry.

The international limits on stack emissions for dioxins in 0.1 nanograms per cubic metre. I have yet to see any enforcement of this limit on the pollutant companies, or safe disposal, when I have viewed the licence conditions. In fact, dioxins are rarely included in the licensing procedures.

Apathy and delirium is part of the culture that pervades the corporate environmental vandals' philosophy, not that of the "nimbys" as is so incorrectly reported!
Posted by dickie, Saturday, 1 September 2007 2:03:20 PM
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