‘There is no such thing as an odour free kraft mill – never promise such a thing.’
The campaign
- Having worked in a pulp mill I am opposed to the building of another pulp mill in Tasmania.
- Having lived near a pulp mill I am opposed to the building of another pulp mill in Tasmania.
- Having asthma/COPD I am opposed to the building of a pulp mill in Tasmania.
- Having studied air pollution and wind paterns in Tasmania I am opposed to the building of a pulp mill in Tasmania.
- Having worked in manufacturing and mining industries I know first hand there will always be two types of pollution – deliberate or accidental. We do not have to accept either.
- Having worked in state Health and supported residents with lung disease I know first hand we do not want this pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, and I conveyed this message in person to Gunns former CEO, Mr Greg L’Estrange, and to other senior Gunns people.
Pulp mill assessment. Ultrafine particulates:
Gunns need to be aware: The lifetime of PM 2.5 particle pollution is from days to weeks and their travel distance ranges from 100 to greater than 1000 kilometres (NRDC, 2000).
2011 – Tasmanian Forests – Interim Report – Submission: Clive Stott
The following ‘statement of fact’ (in green below) appeared in Gunns Pulp Mill Project Newsletter #6
Wind roses for the Tamar Valley show Gunns ‘statement of fact’ to be anything but that.
Prevailing wind directions at certain times of the year will carry acknowledged emissions to most, if not all, populated areas in the Tamar valley including Launceston. Then we have anabatic and katabatic winds:
Anabatic winds typically occur during the daytime in calm sunny weather.
There will be pollution up the river when it is calm and sunny, AND when it is blowing a howling nor-westerly.
Katabatic winds are caused by the downward motion of cold air. Along with this cold air pollution drains back into the valley again. Launceston does not always flush after a very cold night when this wind occurs for just an hour or so on just some days of the year. Pollution slops back and forth in the valley. It does not all go out into Bass Strait as depicted most likely because the Tamar estuary at 70Km is Australia’s longest.
GAMING (MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS) BILL 2013 (No. 18) Second Reading
The opportunity was used to remind Labor and Liberal of their involvement in the passing of the corrupt Pulp Mill Assessment Act.Mr BOOTH – Yes, as Mr O’Halloran says, a dark moment in Tasmania’s history, where people’s rights were trampled in this desperate rush to get this pulp mill proposal up. It could not be assessed and was not able to be built in such a way that it would not damage the air people breathe in the Tamar Valley. It would pollute Bass Strait with some of the most toxic poisons known to man, and subject the community to another 1 000-odd log trucks a day, and proliferate pulp trees by special changes to legislation and the subversion of planning schemes to make plantation trees permitted use. The community’s rights were removed every step of the way with that process and it is still hanging about.The Australian Medical Association says the Tasmanian Government is risking a major public health disaster by fast-tracking assessment of a controversial pulp mill. Doctors say the project fails to meet pollution guidelines and the community will suffer.
AMA Tasmania Branch Position Statement – Proposed Tamar Valley Pulp Mill
Brief to the Members of the Upper House
AMA: Pulp Mill and Health
Peter Cundall accuses Gunns of corruption
Illnesses linked to pollution
SIMON BEVILACQUA
December 17, 2006 12:00am
A NEW study has found a strong link between Tamar Valley air pollution and Launceston hospital admissions.
Researchers examined the relationship between levels of particles in the air in the Tamar Valley and respiratory admissions at the Launceston General Hospital between 1992 and 2002.
During this 10 years levels of particulate matter dropped significantly, largely because of a massive reduction in woodheaters in Launceston.
The study found admissions to the LGH for bronchitis and bronchiolitis also dropped significantly over this period.
Led by Tasmanian School of Medicine researcher Desiree Mesaros and Launceston lung specialist James Markos, the study was conducted by the University of Tasmania, the LGH and supported by the Clifford Craig Medical Research Trust.
In recent years, Launceston has recorded some of the highest air pollution levels in Australia. It has also recorded the highest levels of a cancer-causing particle of any city in the nation.
Of particular concern are elevated levels of an air-borne pollutant which is highly carcinogenic and found in coal tar, vehicle exhaust fumes, tobacco smoke and char-grilled food.
Dr Mesaros and Dr Markos will report on the health effects associated with exposure to these compounds in the Launceston region.
Expert estimates are that between eight and 25 people die prematurely each year because of air pollution in the Tamar Valley.
The region’s air pollution gained exposure after a landmark study in the early 1990s found it had some of the worst particle pollution in the world.
The pollution problem is compounded by weather patterns which trap smoke, dust and chemical particles in the valley.
Particle levels in Launceston last winter met national health guidelines for the first time since records were kept in the early 1990s.
Findings of the Tamar Valley study will be presented to an international audience at the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand conference in March.
Air Pollution is a killer
What cleanairtas has been saying for years has now been recognised at the highest level.
Watch Hon Kerry Finch MLC give his speech on the Pulp Mill Amendments 29/1/2014
Go here to see more of what Kerry Finch has to say on the pulp mill.
Gunns Pulp Mill: Democracy Betrayed – TAP into a Better Tasmania.
- No Seal of Approval – Chris Landon-Lane
- 8.2.2011 – Gunns gets final approvals.
- A Christian Response to the Gunns Pulp Mill – Dr Andrew Corbett
- Timeline of Events – Markets for Change
Click above to watch the ABC’s 7.30 Report – 10.2.2014
(Picture of Geoffrey Cousins) | Report not available
13.2.2014 – More HERE
The Mercury: Doctors warn on Tamar pulp mill smoke after WHO report.
(Click on the picture to read what they have to say)
16.4.2014 – Advocate: Burnie Council pulp mill push
Gunns Air Modelling. Check the report out here
In a Nova Scotia town residents are fighting the local pulp mill’s pollution. Read the story here.
The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd. – by Professor Quentin Beresford
Book launch interupted. Quentin Beresford wins award
Gunns former boss John Gay ordered to pay from insider trading proceeds
The liquidators of timber firm Gunns Limited want to quiz the company’s auditors over their role in the 2012 collapse involving $3 billion of liabilities.
Former Gunns boss puts his house on the market for millions. (download)
Sold for $2.1m
Downfall of Gunns and John Gay
And again! No place for a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley…
Smoke originating at a burn at Temma on the upper west coast of Tasmania moved across the north of the state into Bass Strait then was carried up the Tamar to Launceston on a north–west prevailing wind, would you believe.
Go here to read EPA Technical Report #29 “Turn right at the Tamar”.
What about all the log trucks? Estimated at one every 2 minutes!
Diesel exhaust is 100 times more toxic than gasoline exhaust.
Click on the picture to read the report.
Air monitoring report- 2010
The EPA Division has continued to operate the Level 2 monitoring station at Rowella in the central Tamar Valley, established in 2006 by the Tasmanian Regional Planning and Development Council (RPDC), as part of the baseline environmental studies required prior to the construction of the proposed pulp mill at Longreach. During 2010, this station has continued to monitor PM2.5 and PM10 particles using TEOM instruments and the levels of sulphur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen using gas analysers. The remaining Microvol air samplers and passive hydrogen sulphide monitoring stations in the Tamar Valley (Beauty Point, Deviot, Riverside, Rowella and Tippogorrie Hills) were decommissioned during 2010, although meteorological data continue to be collected at these sites.EPA Update 9th January 2013: The station at Rowella was established by the Regional Planning and Development Council (RPDC) in 2006 to obtain a year of base-line air quality data in the lower Tamar valley prior to construction and operation of the proposed Long Reach pulp mill. The Environment Division (now the EPA Division) formally took over operation of Rowella station in December 2007. The station had continued to operate to obtain further base-line air quality data for particle concentration (by TEOM) and several gas species. In September 2012 the decision was made to cease operation of this station. The Rowella station is currently being dismantled. If circumstances change in the future an assessment will be made of the need for a resumption of monitoring in the lower Tamar.
Click on the photo to read Nick Clark’s Mercury article – The Pulp Mill is Finally Pulped.
The Examiner’s front page 22/2/2019. Click on the picture to read a further report
TASMANIAN activists who promote protests which involve trespass onto private land could receive 12 months’ imprisonment under new federal legislation.
The new laws, which primarily target farmland and farming and forestry businesses, were passed in the Senate this week.
Senator Duniam amended the bill to include wood processing facilities.
The laws would cover places such as timber and pulp mills.
A spokesman for the receivers KordaMentha said that two sites adding up to 363 hectares had been sold. The sales comprise the former pulp mill site at Long Reach and a site near George Town which was originally proposed for a worker’s village during pulp mill construction.
Gunns Limited’s dramatic fall over about two years from 2011 to 2013 was well documented at the time, and ended with former CEO John Gay being convicted for insider trading.”It comes down to poor management and greed on the part of the company,” – Forico CEO Bryan Hayes
But where does Forico stand with its burning, pesticide and herbicide activities?
So when Gunns proposed a native forest, kraft chlorine pulp mill in his beloved Tamar Valley, it was a clash of the Titans. What he described as the “dirty, rotten, stinking pulp mill” had to be stopped. Peter spent his 80th birthday in 2007 in Launceston’s Albert Hall protesting the fast-tracking of the pulp mill and, at 82 in 2009, was arrested for the first time in his life outside Parliament House in Hobart, where he was standing in a sea of “Pulp mill corruption” placards. He pleaded not guilty on the grounds that he was not breaking the law by protesting at the parliament. After he was sentenced he characterised the passage of the special legislation under which the mill was assessed as “corrupt”: “When you get a situation where a major proponent of a major pulp mill can actually donate to the main political parties and then cooperate in preparing that legislation for parliament and passing that through, that is corrupt and I’m fighting against that.”