TASMANIA'S PULP MILL    

A public demonstration by timber families has been held on International Workers Day (May 1, 2009) to deliver an open letter to the members of the Wilderness Society to tell the truth and to be accountable for the harm its international media stunts are inflicting upon Tasmanian working families.   

Representative family members of the Forestry Furnishing Products Division of CFMEU, Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association and Timber Communities Australia rallied on International Worker’s Day.

“Timber workers and their families are not prepared any longer to sit back and allow their livelihoods to be sold out by a campaign of misleading, dishonest and harmful claims.”  Eva Down, Northern Regional coordinator for Timber Communities Australia said today.

“Families have worked hard to adjust to having almost half our native forest locked up in nature reserves. Now to be confronted with these outrageous claims is no more than economic vandalism.” Mr Ferdie Kroon, Executive Officer of the Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association.

“The Wilderness Society must be accountable for the harm it is creating to working families with its job destroying stunts “added Scott McLean, Tasmanian State Secretary of the CFMEU Forestry division.

“The Wilderness Society must be accountable for the harm it is creating to working families with its job destroying stunts “added Scott McLean, Tasmanian State Secretary of the CFMEU Forestry division.

The open letter delivered to members of the Wilderness Society can be downloaded.

Tasmanian integrated timber company, Gunns Limited, the developers of the pulp mill have recently announced that it has advanced its negotiations with potential joint venture equity and expects to finalise an agreement in June 2009. The media also is reporting positive developments of equipment arriving for the mill.

Communities throughout the region and statewide businesses have welcomed this positive and confident announcement. The Tasmania forest sector has not been immune from the impacts of the market slow down caused by the Global Financial crisis, and a domestic pulp mill will future proof the industry from downturn in wood chip exports.

The need for the pulp mill was one of the issues raised by Timber Communities Australia when they addressed the House of Representative’s Standing Committee on Infrastructure, Transport, and Regional Development and Local Government inquiry on the Impacts of the crisis.  The timber dependent communities also argued for support of local business when implementing stimulus packages to combat the damage being caused by the recession.

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Both Gunns Limited and the State Government have undertaken economic studies for the pulp mill which show significant economic benefit to the State and the company.  Opponents to the mill including the Wilderness Society and the Launceston Environmental Centre's Tasmanian Round table for Sustainable Industry project commissioned economic modeling which disputes these positive assessments.  Forestry Tasmania commissioned an independent assessment of it pulp wood supply agreement to deal with claims of subsidies to the project.

An internet based activist group is claiming its “first corporate win” that ANZ has 'pulled out' of financing Tasmania’s modern pulp mill.

The Get up group is now placing advertisements in Tasmanian and National newspapers aimed at the finance sector and Tasmania’s new Premier, David Bartlett. These advertisements feature a computer generated image of protestors in front of a river with ‘logging’ blackened stumps down to the river’s edge.

All timber harvesting in Tasmania must comply to the Forest Practices code. This code demands that waterways are protected and that stream side rivers are implemented in the sustainable harvesting plan. For a class 1 waterway this is a 40 metre buffer zone, as explained in this extract of the code.

One of Get up earliest campaigns was about stopping willful deception in advertising. The activists argued for the need for regulation to protect against false advertising and misleading information most consumers take for granted. 

Gunns Ltd executive chairman John Gay announced (page 4) to the Australian Stock Exchange  "the company was in negotiations with a number of parties who have expressed interest" and "expecting to reach agreement on key terms with a partner by the end of April 2009."

Mr Gay said "We believe there is strategic value in introducing a partner with a strong industry position to the project, including bringing construction, operational and marketing experience,".

Gunns yesterday released new figures showing it has already spent $125 million to date on the pulp mill, which now has been approved for construction by both the state and federal governments,.

Mr Gay said primary source of funding for the project will be a finance debt facility which is being co-ordinated by a leading European bank.

The project has become even more crucial for the Tasmanian and Australian economies as the impact of the global financial crisis is felt on employment.

At a time when many companies are making workers redundant, the pulp mill will be a major job creation project

Mr Gay said the pulp mill development would create 2ooo jobs during its two-year construction phase and 1600 permanent jobs when fully operational.

A powerpoint briefing of the Company's half year results was also released. See below.

 Brian Greenwod, the Andritz Project Director and General Manager recently gave a presntation on the evolution of pulp mill. He recounted how he grew up in a pulp mill town in the State of Maine.  

Maine like Tasmania is not only known for its forests but also it’s fishing industry. It is the ‘capital’ of the American lobster catch. 

When pulp mills used elemental chlorine gas in the bleaching process, organochlorines (dioxins) were a problem in rivers receiving the treated waste water. Since the early 1990s, chlorine bleaching has been replaced by ECF bleaching. So successful has ECF been in eliminating dioxins in the treated wastewater, Maine has a 1997 law that requires all mills to certify that they are using ECF bleaching.

The local EPA also has a strict monitoring program that has been unable to detect dioxin in pulp mill effluent. The two major industries of fishing and pulp and paper now exist happily together in Maine.

Representatives of the Tasmanian fishing industry at the briefing had advised that opponents to the mill had warned them that pulp mills could taint fish. The experts were able to address this concern by pointing to the evidence in the USA and in Sweden.

Such a claim was made in the media in relation to scallops, with the ABC’s 7.30 report forced to apologise for misleading the audience. Maps showing the location Tasmania ’s major fishing catch have been produced by the Bureau of Rural Science, and can be compared in relation to the pulp mill's location in Northern Tasmania .

The Tasmanian Pulp mill will use Elemental Chlorine Free bleaching.

The World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) states in their Environmental,  Health and Safety Guidelines for Pulp and Paper Mills "When Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) or Total Chlorine Free (TCF) bleaching technologies are used, the concentrations of dioxins and furans in the effluents are below the detection limits."  ECF technology has been a major advance in pulp mills since the late 1980s, and the environmental benefits are clear as shown in this graph of British Columbian mills:

The Company behind the pulp mill has released its report on its operations.  The report includes an expenditure of $125 million on the development of the pulp mill and the cost of undertaking environmental, social and economic impact studies on the mill.

The full presentation can be downloaded here. The analysis shows these key points for the pulp mill

• Pulp Mill project is developed to a project ready status
• The project is now in a “care and maintenance” phase, with $200k per month required to keep project in a fully ready state (environmental monitoring and engineering)
• Minor management focus required to keep project in ready status
• On target to select a Joint Venture partner by April 2009. Benefits of joint venture approach:-
  1. Introduce construction and operational experience
  2. Provide marketing support and expertise
• Leading European bank appointed to arrange debt finance for the project
• Full construction related approvals achieved with operational conditions of Federal and State permits to be finalised progressively.

Since the annual general meeting of Gunns Limited held in October 2008, there has been speculation about the future of this exciting project.

At the AGM it was announced that the project was in a ‘ready status’ for construction to start once finance was obtained but that the World financial crisis has had a big impact on the timing of attaining financial close.

The company’s CEO said the financial fundamentals were sound and the “Bell Bay Mill will be highly competitive in the global market...due to the location and quality of the wood resource, the scale and design of the mill and the proximity of the mill to the Asian market.

Gunns confirmed it is continuing to proceed with the Pulp Mill Project as planned. Final Federal Government approval is expected in January 2009, with construction of the project remaining on track to proceed once financing is secured.

The company also advised that that it will not seek to renew the Sovereign Risk Agreement for wood supply to the Bell Bay Pulp Mill.

There will be no impact on wilderness or old growth forest in the wood supply. It will be predominantly from plantations with an initial mix of pulp wood from the integrated harvesting of regrowth forests.

This means that once the final modules of the Environment Impact Management plan have been assessed by the Independent Expert Group and endorsed by the Federal Minister, the project can be quickly commenced as soon as finance is secured.

The pulp mill remains:

• A significant value creation opportunity for Tasmania
• An opportunity to value add our wood resource within Australia
• The mill will diversify the State forest sector and provide regional stability
• the best available environmental management technology
• Creating and securing thousands of Tasmanian jobs

The current financial crisis whilst it has slowed the commencement of the projects, demonstrates that Tasmania’s economy is not insulated and desperately needs the additional $6.7 billion boost to Gross State Product that the mill will provide.

Pulp Mill ready; just waiting financial go.

The Examiner has reported that at the AGM of Gunns Limited held on 30 October 2008 the Chairman told shareholders that the mill was in “Ready Status”. The last modules of the environmental management plan were with the Federal Government.

However, financial closure on the funding of the pulp mill would depend of the current World financial crisis. Read the Chairman’s Statement , as well as follow the link to the presentation (5.8 mb file) on its plantation estate given at the AGM about the Company.

Despite the approved pulp mill only value adding woodchips that are currently being exported, and that the woodchips are produced under strict harvesting regimes that include Federal and State Laws as well as the National Forest Policy Statement and the Regional Forest Agreement opponents to the mill still raise issues of the forest harvest impacting on wilderness, old growth and ‘or threatened species.

All of which are adequately protected in reserves or by management actions implemented by the State Government. One example is the Wedge Tailed eagle that activists claim has a 97% chance of extinctions, what they fail to state is that reported numbers of territories has increased from 138 to 458 since the NFPS was created in 1992.

Despite the approval of the pulp mill under the laws of the Australian and State Governments, despite detailed assessments on the social, economic and environmental impacts of the pulp mill, . Despite the ABC  reporting that the investment group, JP Morgan, is talking up the economics of Gunns' proposed northern Tasmanian pulp mill, opponents of the pulp mill continue to campaigning against the approved mill.

The Australian Financial Review has reported that an internet based activist group with strong links to the chemical, mining and banking industry is attempting to over turn the decision of the democratically elected State Parliament by lobbying shareholders and financial institutions against the pulp mill.

Opponents to the mill are using information supplied by Naomi Edwards to claim that “Mill competitiveness falls while government subsidies rise”. Edwards has previously raised these issues on the ABC. The World Today report was flawed and forced the ABC to make a correction. (See Media watch).

Pulp mill opponents ‘TAP’ have published a paper on subsidies written by Andrew Bent that claims the government will subsidise the pulp mill with a fanciful claim of $11 billion of taxpayer funds. No wonder Andrew was sentenced for burglary in 1810 and transported as a convict.  The ‘author” of this major economic argument is anonymous and uses a fictitious name selected from the annals of Tasmanian print journalism!  A  briefing paper looks at these allegations of subsidies.

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Despite thousands of articles written by seasoned and experienced journalists on the approved pulp mill, the judges at the Victorian Premier's literary awards has awarded a major prize to an essay by Richard Flanagan, a fiction writer and vocal critic of  Tasmanian forest sector that along with the democratically elected State Government, he claims is responsible for the "rape of Tasmania".

The judges claimed that " it is a fact-rich piece, very well written and argued". They have totally ignored the criticism by the then Federal Minister of Forests that the article lacked facts. A link is provided to that speech as well as a briefing paper that examines the background of the article and the judges' decision. Mr Flanagan in accepting the award called for a commission of inquiry into the State Government, perhaps that inquiry should be directed to the awarding of this prestigious  John Curtin Prize for Journalism that is meant to recognises a journalism feature in any medium that, through excellence in writing and reporting, helps define Australia's place in the world.

The campaign against the approved value adding pulp mill with about 5,000 - 10,000 opponents of the mill  chosen to attend a rally promoted by the distribution of 70,000 leaflets to households across Tasmania.

The leaflets focus on a report released in the first week of August by the Australian National University that claims to calculate the carbon storage potential of Australia’s native forests. [Read a critique]

The rally focus was on ‘democracy’ and are making claims about the Pulp Mill Assessment Act democratically passed by the Tasmanian Parliament last year.  Yet are their concerns valid, a new briefing paper looks at the Pulp mill and Democracy. Opponents later that week forced the suspension of the House of Assembly by their behaviour in the public gallery.

Recent media statements by 'community' groups opposing the value adding pulp mill, appear to be very 'professional' in targeting media outlets and presenting information in ways that are media friendly. Just who is behind this new approach of 'slick advertising' and 'witty' catchphrases.  The linked report asks are there links to a political party.

The pulp mill will only source timber from regrowth native forests and plantations that are approved for harvesting by the Regional Forest Agreement and the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement. No logs from old growth forests will be used. The detailed modelling shows that plantations will increasingly be the source of the pulp wood, increasing to 80% per annum. Over the life of the Project the preferred strategy detailed in Table 6.4 of the IIS is that plantations will supply 64% and regrowth native forest 36%.

Whilst a plantation may produce all pulp wood, native forest harvesting either selective harvesting or clear felling produce both saw logs and pulp wood.

A quick thank you and a look at his achievements can be accessed here.

Paul took over the Premiership when his good friend Jim Bacon resigned due to ill health. However Paul led the ALP to victory in 2004.

His Deputy, David Bartlett, has been sworn in as the State’s new Premier.  With the pulp mill already approved the new Premier will be able to focus on other priority issues for the future of the State. Some of these issues include education and training which featured in his 2007 speech in support of the Mill’s approval

The Tasmanian Treasurer released to the public a tripartite agreement on the sovereign risk of the wood supply agreement from State Forests on 5 May 2008.

 The agreement details the commitment by government to honour the contract between Forestry Tasmania and Gunns Limited for the long term supply of pulp mill.  However it also puts in place mechanisms to compensate for a loss of supply to action approved by both Houses of Parliament. The need for such an agreement can be found in a check of forest legislation passed in the last 25 years by State Parliament.  

The Tasmanian Government has said sovereign risk agreements were accepted practice in relation to investments of the size of the pulp mill and had been negotiated by officials. The agreement limits the Governments liability to only $15 million and demands that any loss be mitigated and net costs minimized.

The approval of the pulp mill has generated a number of Legal Challenges the latest from a Victorian Group calling itself Lawyers for Forests. This legal challenge follows unsuccessful legal bids by the Wilderness Society and a group identified as Investors for Future of Tasmania. In April 2009 the Federal Court rejected the LFF challenge.

Dr Peter Manins, Senior Research Scientist, Marine and Atmospheric Research, CSIRO: 

 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 for the public in Launceston than this pulp mill, 36 kilometres away.” from Four Corners "Grist to the Mill"

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The marine outfall of the pulp mill would be situated 2.7 km offshore from Five Mile Bluff, 2.9 km from the boundary of Commonwealth marine waters, itself 3 nm (5.6 km) offshore.

Based on the available evidence, the Department has not identified any likely significant impacts on the marine environment in Commonwealth waters from the proposed pulp mill.  Department of Environment and Water Resources