Pulp Mill in Tasmania

There have been two significant attempts to build a large bleached eucalypt kraft pulp mill in Tasmania to carry out downstream processing of eucalypt woodchips for export to Japan, South Korea and China. Both have met with opposition because they source pulpwood from native forests, and because of their location, technology and emissions. With the second attempt, the assessment and approval processes also became the centre of controversy.

In 1989, the Commonwealth Government approved the Wesley Vale Pulp Mill project. The approval was subject to enhanced environmental conditions, including the development of new guidelines for dioxins. The joint venture companies, Noranda Forests Inc of Canada and North Broken Hill Ltd, decided they would not proceed with the project under these conditions. There was significant local (Tasmanian) opposition to the pulp mill. Among other things, opponents were concerned about dioxins that would be present in low levels in the effluent discharged from bleached kraft pulp mills. The opposition was a factor in the election of five Greens MLAs at the Tasmanian election held later that year.

Gunns announced in June 2004 that it would conduct a feasibility study into the viability of a totally chlorine-free (TCF) bleached kraft pulp mill to be constructed in Tasmania. The Commonwealth Government agreed to commit $5 million for project costs associated with the development of an environmental best-practice pulp mill, provided that such a TCF pulp mill was economically viable.

In October 2004, the Tasmanian Government approved revised environmental guidelines for new bleached eucalypt kraft pulp mills, and the following month declared the Gunns pulp mill project to be of state significance, meaning that it would need an Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) by the Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC). It was proposed that the $1.4 billion pulp mill, initially processing 3.2 million green tonnes of pulp wood a year into about 820 000 air-dried tonnes of pulp, would be built near Bell Bay and would use elementally chlorine-free (ECF) bleaching technology.

In 2005, the Commonwealth environment minister decided that, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC), the IIA was to be the assessment process used to determine the mill’s impacts on listed threatened species and communities, on listed migratory species and on the marine environment. The Tasmanian assessment and approval process examined all the environmental impacts of the pulp mill, but the Commonwealth environment minister, when deciding whether to approve the project under the EPBC Act, was required only to consider issues that affected matters of national environmental significance. Other issues, such as those raised by groups opposed to the Gunns mill proposal (for example, the impacts of air emissions on nearby vineyards, the use of pulpwood harvested from native forests, water use by the mill and the effect of log trucks), could not be considered by the minister under the EPBC Act.

Gunns submitted its draft IIA in July 2006. Later that year, the RPDC requested a significant volume of new material to deal with the ‘fundamental omissions and errors’ that were contained in the IIA. However, other issues surrounding the assessment process appeared in December 2006 and January 2007 when two members of the RPDC assessment panel resigned, citing Tasmanian Government interference in the process. In January 2007, Gunns chairman John Gay stated that the pulp mill proposal would be scrapped unless a final decision on the mill was made within six months, and he questioned whether further public hearings were necessary. Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon hoped that a decision could be made by the end of the financial year, and asked the RPDC to speed up the process. In February 2007, Gunns refused to supply its additional documentation to the RPDC. On 14 March, Gunns announced that it was withdrawing from the RPDC assessment process. The Tasmanian Parliament passed legislation for a new assessment procedure for the pulp mill whereby Sweco Pic, a Finnish consulting firm, was to evaluate the pulp mill and make a recommendation by 31 May 2007 and the Tasmanian Parliament was to vote on this by 31 August 2007.

The then Commonwealth Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, decided that the pulp mill would be assessed on preliminary documentation under the EPBC Act, allowing for public comment. A challenge by the Wilderness Society and the Investors for the Future of Tasmania to the minister’s decision was lost in the Federal Court.

In August 2007, Turnbull asked the Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, and an expert panel, to provide him with independent advice on the draft recommendations about the pulp mill that he had received from his department. On 4 October 2007, taking into consideration that advice, Turnbull approved the pulp mill under the EPBC Act, subject to 48 environmental conditions. Compliance with these conditions would be monitored by an Independent Site Supervisor over the 50-year life of the project. An Independent Expert Group would work with Gunns to ensure that the conditions were addressed through an Environmental Impact Management Plan to be approved by the minister before the mill was commissioned.

A Swedish pulp and paper specialist said that the proposed dioxin levels that would trigger closure of the Gunns mill equalled the total amount of dioxin emitted in a year by the Swedish bleached pulp and paper industry, which produces seven times more pulp than the Gunns mill. However, Peacock replied that the conditions imposed on the mill would make it equal or better than any mill in the world.

The Australian Labor Party, like the Howard Government, has supported the Gunns bleached kraft pulp mill, subject to it meeting the highest environmental standard. The Greens oppose a mill of this technology and size located in the Tamar Valley, and have called for a pulp mill that uses only plantation-grown pulpwood, releases no liquid emissions and does not use chlorine to bleach the pulp.

Documentation
Gunns Ltd, Pulp Mill Project web site, 2007: http://www.gunnspulpmill.com.au/.
Department of the Environment and Water Resources, ‘EPBC Act public notices: Turnbull imposes world’s toughest pulp mill conditions’, DEWR web site, October 2007.