Bell Bay Pulp Mill - Project Assessment and Approval

Project Assessment and Approval

The Tasmanian Government employed the Finnish consultants, Sweco Pic, to conduct an environmental impact assessment of the proposed mill. Community groups opposed to the mill criticised the choice of this company.

Gunns withdrew from Tasmania's independent planning and development assessment process (the RPDC) in March 2007 after senior RPDC panel members cited the mill design as 'critically non-compliant'. The next day then premier Paul Lennon recalled parliament and by the end of the month new fast-track pulp mill assessment legislation was passed by both Houses of Parliament.

On 4 October 2007 the then federal Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, gave Commonwealth approval for the mill which had previously been given approval at a state level by the Tasmanian Government. Turnbull stated that an extra 24 conditions, beyond a series of draft departmental conditions previously published, would be imposed on the project giving a total of 48 conditions. He said the decision was based on science and recommendations made by the Australian Governments chief scientist Dr Jim Peacock. Tasmanian Premier, Paul Lennon, said the federal conditions duplicate permit conditions already mandated by the Tasmanian parliament. He has also noted that one benchmark had been relaxed from draft conditions, being the monthly average concentration limit of chlorate in the effluent.

In 2009, (then) Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, would not grant the proposed mill the final necessary operational approval before then planned studies were completed on its potential impact on the marine environment and allowed Gunns a further twenty six months to complete the studies. A new condition was also placed on the mill, meaning Gunns could be liable for criminal and civil penalties if the mill breached defined "environmental limits" during operations.

In early March 2011, following a one week delay after Gunns contacted his department the day prior to the deadline requesting tougher environment standards, the Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, gave the final approval for the Gunns' proposed pulp mill, on the basis of tougher environmental conditions requested by the company itself. Burke stated that demands made by environmental groups opposed to the development, particularly with regards to the chemical process to be used in the plant, had been addressed.

One of those conditions concerned the bleaching process, described by the minister as 'elemental chlorine free' or ECF. Dr Karen Stack, a part-time lecturer and researcher in the School of Chemistry at the University of Tasmania, states an ECF system uses chlorine dioxide instead of chlorine to bleach the pulp, which greatly reduces the levels of organochlorines that make it out into the environment through effluent released from a pulp mill. She describes this system a more environmentally friendly process.