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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 2 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 441 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

disappointed to receive a copy of the 11/2-page submission on the 686-page environmental impact statement regarding the proposed plant.

I was also extremely disappointed that the submission did not once include the word "forests", even though probably the major concern with this proposal is that it will consume 200,000 tonnes of native forest from the south-east region annually for the next 20 years. In fact, I wonder whether anyone in the Chief Minister's Department looked through the EIS. The submission seems to be just a very short summary of the executive summary of the EIS and the letters that the ACT government has received about the proposal. There is no analysis at all of the information contained in the EIS and its implications for the national capital region. There is no expression of opinion by the government of whether it supports the proposal or not or of particular concerns it might have. It just asks the New South Wales government to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the EIS.

The whole submission is just so bland that it is almost worthless. So much for our new government showing regional leadership and promoting ecologically sustainable development.

The reason I asked the Chief Minister to put in a submission is that this proposal will have a major impact on our region. The charcoal plant at Mogo is an essential component of an integrated silicon metals project which also includes a quartz mine located near Cowra and a silicon smelter plant near Lithgow. The plant site is about four kilometres south of Mogo, just off the Princes Highway. The proposed site is surrounded by rural residences and less than three kilometres from Broulee.

The area of the site is 73 hectares. The plant will have five chimneys about 33 metres or 11 storeys high. The plant will operate 24 hours a day for 350 days of the year. There will need to be about 70 semitrailer movements per day into and out of the plant. Around 30,000 tonnes per annum of charcoal will be produced, which will be transported by about 10 semitrailers per day from the plant over the Clyde Mountain and through Braidwood and Taralga to join the Hume Highway at Goulburn.

The company says that between 20,000 and 25,000 tonnes of sawdust will have to be disposed of each year, possibly burned to generate electricity. The factory requires a substantial water supply, about one megalitre a week. Some of this may come from the Tomakin treatment works, the rest probably coming from the local water supply and water collected on site. The plant site will contain ponds and will be surrounded by bunding to retain run-off from the site and leachates from the wood. Any overflow or seepage would run into adjoining wetlands, which feed into Candalagan Creek.

With the disruption to the local catchment area and the closeness of this location to the sea, there is a potential for increased salinisation of the local water table.

On the economic side, some 50 new jobs will be created by the plant, but this has to be balanced against the economic losses to the local tourism industry, which has traded on the image of the nature coast, and the reduction in land values in the area.

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