Myths indeed Mr Ashbarry!. A very selective article you have written. The mill is proposed at longreach which is 9.5km south of the bell bay precinct and 6.5km south of the relatively benign bell bay power station. The Longreach site is the most southerly and isolated heavy industry in the region, yet it will dwarf all others. The mill would be sited on a unique narrowing of the Tamar River. Directly opposite the proposed mill site is the rowella peninsula - the home of vineyards, agribusiness and aquaculture and organic producers. The 15km directly south of the rowella peninsula represents the iconic Tamar valley wine route. Tasmanias premier wine route. This stretch of the tamar on both sides of the river is now a wine and food lovers paradise, dotted with local producers, pubs and restaurants, skilled artists and craftspeople - a dozen vineyards, cellar doors, organic farms, agribusiness and many other tourist operators. All this before we even begin to talk about the many thousands of residents. The culture of this region has shifted over the last twenty years and is now the major tourist hub in the north. The Tamar Valley has been slowly allowed to de-industrialise whilst refining and cleaning up the existing industry in the industrial town of Georgetown. Georgetown is the only part of the Tamar valley that our premier has visited or attempted to engage during this whole debate. He and is government, including the tourism and environment minister Paula Wriedt who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into meeting Tamar valley tourism operators have virtually excised the Tamar Valley I have outlined above from their minds. The MAJORITY OF people in the Tamar Valley have in every forum available to them - and this has been extensively documented that they do not want this pulp mill. And they have said in even larger numbers they DISAPPROVE of the fast-track approvals process that the government has employed to ram the pulp mill through the parliament. But that is a subject for another post!

Have you heard that John Howard is just busting for Peter Garrett to come out and condemn the current proposal. Then Johnny Howard can play hero and move the mill from its current site to the marginal electorate of Braddon where there is dire unemployment and no treasured environment to worry about.

Another important dimension of the mill project is the amount of drinking water it will consume, estimated to be 26 billion litres of water each year.

There are a lot of councils in Tasmania, let alone on the mainland, who would be eager to get that kind of water supply (would help the Murray River!).

The Tasmanian government is agitating for control of water supplies to be passed from local councils to a statewide authority. Local councils would probably lose their sovereignty over their water catchments, their right to decide where their water is used, etc.

There has been talk in the past of sending water to mainland Australia via super tanker:

"TASMANIA is considering plans to export billions of litres of fresh water from its wild rivers to parched mainland cities using supertankers.

"A number of companies, including one chaired by former prime minister Bob Hawke, are negotiating to capture excess water from swollen rivers on the state's high-rainfall west coast.

"Although the Tasmanian Government was initially sceptical, state Water Minister David Llewellyn told The Weekend Australian he now believed the idea stacked up economically -- and could be used to benefit Tasmanians as well as mainland consumers."

http://www.solarsailor.com/media_070602_Tasmania.htm

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Any contribution to the debate on the proposed Gunns pulp mill by a member of TCA must be contextualised.
Timber Communities Australia proports to represent the "timber folk" of Tasmania yet is closely linked to and partly funded by (FIAT) the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, which is in turn funded by timber industry corporate players, predominantly Gunns. Gunns is of course the pulp mill proponent. Sorry to be a party pooper big al.
Since its inception in 1987, TCA has positioned itself as the voice of the little people caught between the conservation movement, governments and the large woodchip companies. It purports to be the authentic voice of those who are "merely seeking to make a living and keep their jobs and feed their families". Its advertisements feature stereotypes of the hard-working family--craftspeople, bee keepers, people in truck-stop cafes and children in the bush with their grandparents. Its web page says it is a grassroots organisation which `exists to encourage the sensible, balanced multiple use of our forests for the benefit of all Australians'",
In fact, it is the brainchild and mouthpiece of NAFI, the National Association of Forest Industries, headquartered in Canberra, the lobby group of Australia's logging and woodchip corporations. NAFI and Timber Communities Australia share a common headquarters in Canberra and a common executive director, Kate Carnell.
A quick look at Timber Communities Australias financial returns reveal its lack of grassroots support.
In 2001-02 only four per cent, or $43,630, of Timber Communities Australia's income came from its members. Seventy-six per cent, or $730,000 out of $965,498, was from direct industry contributions.
In the following year, 2002-03, direct contributions from industry to TCA rose to 86 per cent--$734,154 of the total of $838,977--and, conversely, member contributions fell by $4,228 to only $39,402,
I,m Sorry if I have disillusioned anyone.
cheerio
samps

The other giant elephant in the Gunns pulp mill room that Alan Ashbarry and others in the pro-mill axis camp which of course includes Tasmanias Lennon labor government, continue to gloss over is the approvals process ie: the shonky and deceitful way in which this project has been kept alive.- The process which recent ERMS polls showewd 64 percent of Tasmanians feel is a sham – and equally that Premier Lennons personal approval rating has slumped to 24 per cent, with 67 per cent disapproving of his performance.
This has been extensively documented.
Indeed word limits constrain one from doing justice to any essay on this topic. So I will simply submit to readers some links to articles and documents that will outline the events particulalry those since December 2006 when the behaviour of the government and the proponent began to bring about the unravelling of an RPDC process which both parties had promised the people of Tasmania would deliver them a rigorous, world class assessment process free of government interference. It was in December that Dr. Warwick Raverty and Julian Greens both resigned from Tasmanias RPDC pulp mill assessment panel. Shockingly, Julian Green the former RPDC chairman in correspondence to Raverty on 20 December 2006, 4 days before he resigned his post citing government interference said
"I tell you this, if Gunns were not a Tasmanian company, this proposal would have already been rejected. As you know we have bent over backwards to help them get it right and they just keep stuffing us around. They are just a bunch of clowns. I am really, really sorry warwick"
1. http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,21166686-3462,00.html
2.http://typingisnotactivism.wordpress.com/2007/04/30/mmmm-get-a-load-of-that-finnish-more-pulp-fiction-insights-from-dr-warwick-raverty/
3.http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,21406490-921,00.html
4.http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,21419866-3462,00.html
5.http://www.tamarpulpmill.info/latest.html (scroll down to march 2007)
6.http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2007/1880848.htm
7.http://tapvision.info/node/117
8.http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1992154.htm
9.http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22270623-27197,00.html
10.http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21431278-601,00.html

Read it and weep. We who live here do.

Alan's comments confirm the dioxin information disjunction in the pulp mill debate:

“PCDD and PCDF emissions in ECF and TCF effluents are about the same. If ECF bleaching is used, the emissions of 2,3,7,8-TCDD and 2,3,7,8-TCDF to water are lower than the limit of quantitation (US EPA Method 1613).”

This limit of quantitation is 10 pg/l based on the available technology when the limit was established. It does not ensure that dioxins will not accumulate in the environment or cause harm. Tests with greater accuracy are now available, but obviously cost more. Because of this modern mills in Canada, Sweden and Maine (US) have followed alternative regimes including continuous improvement and A-B tests requiring no detectable impact on the environment. Pulp Mills can and should operate at orders of magnitude better than 10 pg/l.