More than one fact has been overlooked with the Gunns mill. Coastal ocean currents stream from Tasmanian waters to the Coral Sea.

The Chipman article states the proposed mill will consume water. Two percent of annual flow from the Trevallyn Dam is mentioned. It is apparent the water consumed will be too polluted to be re used and will be dumped in the ocean.

Fresh water dumped in ocean rises to the surface. Dissolved pollution bonded to fresh water will be blown northwards from Tasmania by prevailing wind.

Irrefutable empirical evidence indicates sand worn away from the Great Australian Bight and Tasmania is transported via Bass Strait into the Eastern Australia Longshore Current (EALC) to Fraser Island Queensland, the GBR and Coral Sea.

Nutrient pollution transported by the EALC is already being drawn by tide and pressed by prevailing wind into estuaries and lakes where excess nutrient loads are feeding algae blooms, smothering seagrass food web habitat, devastating fish stocks and causing marine animal starvation. On the GBR invasive algae blooms are smothering coral and causing coral bleaching. Well fed algae thrives in warm weater.

Fact is pollution bonded to fresh water from such mill has not been scientifically assessed in relation to longshore current linking Tasmanian waters to the Coral Sea ecosystem.

Timber workers should consider the livelihood of many thousands of people associated with professional and amateur fishing tourism industries and coastal communities. Also, sea birds on the east coast of Australia are almost non existent now. Algae fed with nutrient pollution killed seagrass nursery causing mass mortality of mutton birds extending along coastline from Rockhampton Qld to NSW, Vic, South Aus and around Tasmania.

There are now unprecedented incidents of whale calves being abandoned. Whales are mammals. It is known mammals abandon their young due to starvation. The cost of fresh healthy fish is now unprecedented due to shortfall in supply. The fishing industry is collapsing. Depletion is impacting on viability of aquaculture, feed meal and industrial food production.

Existing industry and government controlled sewage outfalls polluting the ocean may be forced to recycle.

Dickie , perhaps the following couple of pastes from the same CSIRO web site may help you with your query about OH&S in modern pulp mills.

Q14: What about odour from kraft pulp mills – I’ve heard that kraft mills always smell bad?
A14: Many older kraft mills do smell bad. This is because the process of pulping uses a compound of sulphur, called sodium sulphide. In the process of removing the lignin polymer and retaining the strength of the fibres a small amount of the sulphur is converted into malodorous gases, including hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg gas), methyl mercaptan (smells of rotten cabbage) and dimethyl sulphide (smells of burning rubber). Collectively these gases are called Total Reduced Sulphur, or TRS.

In modern kraft mills, these by-products of pulping are collected in sophisticated pollution control systems and burnt to remove the odour. The only time that these gases escape to the atmosphere are during periods of process upset.

In a mill using Accepted Modern Technology odour should only be detected beyond the mill boundary for 2 – 3 days per year at most, during the time the mill is being started up or being shut down for its annual maintenance program. The emission limit guidelines for odour established by the Tasmanian Government are the most stringent in the world.

The CSIRO also states the following.

The 500 kg of each tonne of woodchips that does not end up as pulp (mainly lignin) will be burnt to release the solar energy stored by the tree in order to run the mill and to recycle the chemicals used to pulp the wood.

Kraft mills are usually self sufficient in energy and often have a small excess of electricity to contribute to the State power grid. In summary the kraft process effectively runs on solar energy stored in the wood and turns carbon dioxide that a tree has converted into cellulose fibre into a useful and natural polymer, papermaking pulp.

That is why there are so many kraft mills in environmentally conscious countries like Sweden, Finland, Norway and Canada.

The comments and links given by most commentators refer to old technology pulp and paper mills. Modern mills run very closed cycles and most noxious gases are burnt before emmission.

The stack emmissions consist mostly of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. CO is extremely low as modern ESPs (precipitators) cannot tolerate it. SO2 is measured in PPM and TRS (smelly sulphurs) in PPB and the dust from the stacks can be measured in kg per day and is slightly less palatable than table salt. Dioxins are not generated in the process and are thus at such a low level that they are not measureable in the stack.

While operating normally you cannot smell pulp odour while actually walking in the plant, and the water effluent is treated almost to the point of being drinkable. The major contaminant in the effluent is sodium cloride which while not normally known to be toxic to sea life, can shut down the pulping process quickly.

The people who say they don't want a stinking pulp mill on their door steps aren't in any danger of getting one, but wouldn't like their argument to be polluted with reality.

TJ in response to Dickie AND Taswegian repeatedly quotes CSIRO however; Australian Government scientists have never operated a full-scale pulp mill to my knowledge. There is no pilot plant where our scientists can play with production volumes and effluents as proposed in this latest kraft mill design.

I predict is to be permitted by the current government as proposed but it will be strangled by the red tape. Gunns wishing to proceed under even stricter federal environmental conditions must add dams and other protections before operating in any capacity. All sorts of scientists will undoubtedly swarm in.

If anything kills this project, it will be Gunns stupidity in not building a smaller scale operation before stepping right into the briny. Dumping effluent at the scale proposed with out checks and balances beforehand was always going to be controversial given their obvious disregard for other industries. Jobs at one mill cannot ruin the work of others no matter how slight the impact.

This is also the downfall of the TCA. In their blindly supportive campaign including no sympathy for a wider community, many jobs in the project must now go to outsiders including I expect more than a handful poached from say South America where they seem to have an abundance of eucalypts now.

TJ may be amused that I have privately lobbied the ALP re expanding their “flexibility” in terms of who does what as we build up an enterprise. Keeping the right people home today is our greatest challenge.

TJ’s shadow is advised to haul back a core group of mobile youngsters, those who traditionally leave for “greener pastures”. Who knows but they may be already speaking Swedish. Perhaps they also drink pulp mill effluent.

Good Luck!

come on Taz, get up to speed.

The Commonwealth has already approved an ECF pulp mill that will pump out similar quantities of treated effluent into Bass Strait

Have a look at http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/epbc/epbc_ap.pl?name=current_referral_detail&proposal_id=2234

The treated effluent in the order of 72,000 cubic metres or tonnes a day will be pumped after treatment to an ocean outfall off Delray Beach.

According to Sandery, P.A. and Kämpf, J., (2005) the Delray Beach outfall has similar flushing times as 5 Mile Bluff.

This Victorian outfall that also combines domestic and industrial waste is subject to community monitoring, with no reports of three eyed fish.

But you only have to look at the politics; did the Commonwealth Minister appoint a panel of scientist to help the Chief Scientist assess the Victorian mIll?

Again look at the EPBC Web site, this ECF mill was deemed not a controlled action.

Although I do agree that it is a pity that from a report in the Financial Review there is not one scientist advising the Chief Scientist that has qualifications in Pulp Mills or ECF technology.

However they do have access to reports that are published on ECF and dioxin emissions that show that right around the World mills using the same technology as Tasmania have dioxin emissions so small they cannot be measured and have no impact on marine environments.

Timberjack

Thank you for advising me to peruse the CSIRO report. Unfortunately you failed to give me an address and I have been unable to access it. However the following URL is a 2006 review of Gunn's Integrated Impact Statement by the CSIRO and it is quite critical of Gunn's report which appears to have many omissions.

http://www.rpdc.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/70703/CSIRO_ReviewOfGunnsDraftIIS_Final4Oct.pdf

I am disappointed that you also failed to address my concerns over the epidemiological studies carried out on workers in pulp mills including those employed by companies who have adopted the ECF technology.

The workers within the studies were found to have significant short and long term health problems and there is a need for potential workers to be advised of these problems.

Cinders. I'm unsure why you feel that the pulp mill approved for operations in Victoria should mitigate community concerns in Tasmania.

Rather that simply exacerbates the environmental pollution and regulators are notorious for imprudently approving of licences for pollutant industries which operate in close proximity to residential areas or fragile eco systems.

History reveals that regulators are in fact the culprits for much of the pollution communities must now endure.

I am also concerned over learning that the proposed mill in Tasmania is set to inter some 56,000 cubic metres per year of waste to landfill.

Chlorine phenols are formed even with the ECF method; landfill will be accepting ESP and scrubber waste, lime kiln dust, boiler ash, chromium, sludges etc. Ash is a known resting place for PCDD's and very few landfills have managed to contain waste to prevent leaking contaminants.

Shut downs and start ups, creating incomplete combustion, are an ideal environment for the formation of PCDD's and PCDF's.

I sense a reluctance by some posters to address the issues raised and I am reminded of many conflicting reports. Perhaps more transparency is required to obtain a satisfactory outcome for the people of Tasmania.