Gunns Limited said the recent acceptance by EPA Tasmania of its application to vary its state environmental permit was a further welcome step in the Bell Bay pulp mill project’s stringent environmental permitting process.
Managing Director, Mr Greg L’Estrange, said "the conclusion of the EPA’s public consultation on the minor permit variation requested by Gunns in April 2011 meant the project had stood a further test of a technical and public review process."
"All of our environmental approvals are in place and these have now been further clarified, at our request, to facilitate our move to ECF Light technology and the adoption of 100 per cent plantation feedstock," Mr L’Estrange said.
"We also see this review as an additional independent and appropriately skilled assessment of the environmental safety and rigour of the Bell Bay project, particularly regarding Tamar Valley air quality and a strengthening of existing controls for protection of the marine environment," he said.
"Gunns is as anxious as EPA Tasmania that the public can be absolutely confident that the mill is safe and that its operations will be carefully and closely monitored to retain that confidence.
"We accept that the EPA took the extra step of seeking public responses to what would normally not attract such a process, as we believe that public confidence in the mill will be stronger for it."
EPA Director, Mr Alex Schaap, released a decision recently that approved a permit variation under the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act, 1994, allowing the EPA to issue an Environmental Protection Notice.
The variations approved by the EPA were a consequence of adopting the ECF Light bleaching process, which is an environmentally superior technology option made possible by Gunns’ decision to supply the mill with plantation only feedstock. The variations were also aimed at aligning the Commonwealth and State regulatory regimes surrounding the project.
