This is the International Year of Ecotourism (IYE 2002) and international tourists are expected to double in the next ten years. Supporting IYE 2002, NSW aims to increase ecotourism potential, and to create examples of best practice sustainable tourism development.

Three and a half hours' drive south of Sydney, Eurobodalla Shire's Nature Coast is NSW's pacesetter in ecotourism. Pure and natural, last September Premier Bob Carr called it a jewel. The South Coast is the fifth most popular overnight destination in Australia, and the third most popular tourist destination for families. The Nature Coast industry is worth $183m per year, it's proof that there really can be dollar rewards for environmental responsibility and living in harmony with nature.

Eurobodalla's population is over 30,000, that's a four fold increase in the last forty years. In contrast, most rural centres that depend on traditional industries have withered.

So who on earth would jeopardise a $180m a year growth industry that also offers the ability to bequeath an environmentally sound region to the future generations? Locals are terrified that Premier Carr would.

The State Government in conjunction with the Australian silicon project consortium intends to develop a charcoal plant between Batemans Bay and Moruya. Hoping there's still a benefit to be harvested from Cowra silica quartz, it's for the long-mooted silicon metal smelter planned for Lithgow.

Locals are appalled. Smoke-stack heavy industry is taboo, it would destroy the Nature Coast. Would people in Sydney accept permanent advertisements all over the Opera House?

Councillors claimed 'It's out of our hands, the State Government is controlling it' and 'We didn't think it would be so big, and thought it would be out in the bush'. But while most councillors and the community had been kept in the dark, some councillors and administrative staff were in 'The In Crowd' and 'in the know'.

Annually, Eurobodalla's timber industry is worth between $5m and $6m, or 3 to 4 percent of tourism. In June 2000 Council's Business Development Board lobbied the state and federal governments for funds to improve employment in the shire's value added timber industry, 'including timber dressing and furniture making'.

A year later, and two months after proponents of the factory met with a select few councillors, on June 28th 2001 State Forests NSW (SFNSW) hosted a planning focus meeting in Batemans Bay. It was attended by representatives of Australian Silicon and by the owner of the preferred site, an irregularly used sand and gravel quarry. And by representatives from Eurobodalla Shire administrative staff, SFNSW, the Environment Protection Authority, the Roads and Traffic Authority, Department of Land and Water Conservation, Department of Urban Affairs and Planning (DUAP, now Planning NSW), and the Department of State and Regional Development.

They were talking about the stereotype of a large manufacturing plant in an industrial city. An industrial settlement of several hectares featuring buildings over-shadowed by five retorts 11 stories high. Burning 545 tonnes of wood a day, and with trucks coming or going every six to eight minutes,.

No problems were foreseen with pollution, road and bridge upgrades of $3m to $8m, or with flora and fauna, or the adjoining wetlands and nearby seaside villages. Get a PR firm to 'sell' it, it was 'full speed ahead'.

In the lead-up and at this meeting, DUAP 'strenuously encouraged the applicant and the [Eurobodalla] council admin staff to inform councillors.' Interesting - a state government agency pressing council admin staff to tell councillors what was happening on their patch.

On July 24th 2001 the consortium finally briefed the whole council, which made no real comment. Council still kept it all 'in confidence' and the record shows Council 'understands and accepts that this matter is a development of state significance'.

That's quite incorrect. The briefing was so that the council could provide an informed comment, and DUAP could then ask the Minister to declare the development to be of state significance. Three weeks after the briefing to the council, on August 13th 2001 Minister Refshauge made the declaration. That was when the council was cut out of the loop.

But the Minister was misled. He was advised by his department that 'The Department has discussed the possible declaration [as State Significant development] with Eurobodalla Shire Council. Council has raised no objections to declaration and is generally supportive of the proposed development.'

There's no paper trail for that advice, and Council is adamant that it's wrong. It is supposed to have come from discussions at the planning focus meeting (but that was before all the councillors were briefed) and telephone discussions with Council admin staff.

Regardless, a wish to enlarge the 'value added timber industry' with thoughts of timber dressing and furniture manufacturing, had turned into the council being 'generally supportive' of a huge charcoal plant less than three kilometres from schools, a retirement village, and beaches enjoyed by thousands during Summer holidays. And much closer to rural holdings that relied on rainwater tanks.

Council's vision statement is for a shire where 'the views of our diverse community are sought and valued in developing plans and projects for the future'. The community is aghast that Council decided to shoulder arms and surrender everything without even alerting them to what was planned.

Nobody from Council has offered a realistic excuse for their abandonment of duty. The community knows that their Council kept mum about the most incompatible development application that the shire had ever known. A plan to put a huge cuckoo's egg in the Nature Coast nest.

Individually, these incidents are not crucial. But joined together, in the words of one Melbourne academic 'this seems to be a case study in bad democratic practice'.

A program purporting to be 'public consultation' left residents in no doubt that the consortium saw it as just 'going through the motions' before 'rubber stamping' in Sydney. If the 'technical' aspects of air, water and noise pollution were met, then community opinion wouldn't count.

From the start some locals subscribed to a 'Done Deal' theory. Then in November a news article included 'The company … may seek compensation if the project is rejected after meeting all the government requirements for approval. 'If people were going to force a change of site, we would have to look at [compensation]. We have followed a clear path which has involved state and local government'.

Two protest marches have seen about 2000 and 2500 participants, and that's in a shire of under 35,000. In Sydney, the pro-rata figure would be two hundred and fifty thousand marchers. Opponents to the plant fly yellow ribbons from their car radio aerials, and they're everywhere. Fundraising events are packed. Council is divided eight to one against the proposal on the chosen site, and that probably reflects the ratio of the community division.

When the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was released, DUAP asked for submissions. There were fifteen submissions in favour of the charcoal plant. There was a record one thousand, five hundred and thirteen against it, none of them 'form letters'.

It's worth checking out the web page www.charcoalition.forests.org.au. But don't expect it to show the enormous depth of hurt and anger that the shadow of this ogre has brought to the Nature Coast.

Baby boomers are 'Still Caring After All These Years' they still have a strong social conscience, and aren't as selfish and materialistic as often portrayed. Around one third of the Eurobodalla population is 55 or over, and baby boomers are extensively represented, so the community psyche differs from the norm.

Treating the Eurobodalla with contempt brought on a predictable reaction. Most residents are 'Non-Extreme Green', ironically much of that is due to Premier Carr who is now the focus of their wrath. Mainstream NSW is the same, readily accepting some 'green' views which only a few years ago were 'a bit over the top'.

One 'Non-Extreme Green' dogma is that if you can just get people truly fond of the environment, then they'll respect it, and then of course they'll protect it. And in some ways, the Nature Coast is not just a geographical region, it's a state of mind. And while environmental responsibility is not a religion, it is seen by many as good preparation for the afterlife. Its intensity shouldn't be underestimated. It is the driving force behind IYE 2002.

So far as the wood is concerned, relying on the terms of the Regional Forest Agreement SFNSW have worked out that the permitted sawlog harvest will result in sufficient 'waste' timber to feed the charcoal plant. Their assessment hasn't convinced everybody.

They produced a nice picture of a spotted gum tree, with dotted lines and arrows showing what was sawlog material, what was waste material suitable for the charcoal plant. But while the preferred shape for sawlog trees is 'tall timber', trees that look like light poles with a tuft on top, the tree used in the diagram is a magnificent spreading one, with branches from about a third of the way up. The over-representation of the pro-rata amount of residue has now been compounded by claims that the sought-after carbon content in the wood is greatest in the trunk and diminishes markedly after the first major branch.

'No trees will be harvested for the sole purpose of producing carbon in the charcoal plant' but 'if saw log quality timber is delivered to the [charcoal] facility these logs will be stockpiled for sale to the local sawmills for processing into the local timber market.' So workers at the plant will have to cull out logs that are too good, even though they'd make better charcoal, and go through the paperwork of selling them to millers. And presumably the stockpiles can't be allowed to get too big.

The definition of 'residue wood' has been broadened, it now includes red timber trees such as bloodwoods and ironbark, and coincidentally a State Forests paper shows that these are 'preferred for the production of charcoal'. Many were poisoned last year near the proposed plant site, but that was 'as part of a regime to maximise the production of high quality sawlogs'. These healthy happy red timber trees would be OK for the charcoal plant, but weren't poisoned because of that. The poisoning program was stopped 'because of intense community concern about the practice'.

The EIS has attracted a litany of criticism from, among others, Eurobodalla Shire Council. The community was told 'The gas which is emitted comprises of water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen'. Fifty percent steam, coolant evaporation was about a third of an olympic swimming pool a week. There was a nice colour photo doing the rounds, it was of the Simcoa plant in WA, not a skerrick of smoke. But not a skerrick of steam either. The stacks, or retorts, have doors at the top, they must have been closed.

Even the EIS admitted extraordinary levels of air pollution. For particulate matter 103.7 kg/day, and it can build up for several days. Too small to see but weighing the same as the particulate matter in smoke it's more dangerous, it gets further into the lungs. How much smoke does it take to weigh 100 kg?

Emissions include nitrogen dioxide, a major constituent of photochemical smog that affects human and plant health, and helps make acid rain. And 10.8 kg/day of sulphur oxides, colourless gas with a characteristic, irritating, pungent odour that reacts with water to form sulphurous acid. And dioxins and furans.

The World Health Organisation's reported threshold, for the concentration of particulate matter where premature deaths start to increase, would be exceeded.

The company gave an undertaking that the 20 to 25 new jobs at the plant would go to locals, except that the Anti-Discrimination Act would require them to advertise widely and employ people on merit. Locals are quite certain that job losses, in the tourism sector and from a reduction in retirees from Victoria and Canberra, would be many times more than gains from a charcoal plant.

Coupled in with this is suspicion that Australian Silicon only intends to gain the necessary approvals and on-sell them as soon as it can. So no long term involvement, and no real incentive to be a good corporate citizen.

Currently much of the cost advantage shown for the silicon project lies in an overvalued US dollar and an undervalued Australian dollar, over the next 18 months that will start to reverse. And there's been a steady run-up in Chinese exports, and South Africa (which has a plant suitable for upgrading) and Namibia are eyeing the market.

Failures have made banks and equity investors nervous about new-metal projects, and all are long-term ventures. Discussion about where the money might come from gets confusing. Along one intriguing trail are several Western Australian based companies and opportunistic investors, at the end is the giant Japanese trading house Iwatani.

So what sweeteners will the people of NSW be offering? For a start, super-cheap electricity subsidised to the extent of $8.7m per year.

A second sweetener could be waiving royalties for the residue wood. At $7.50 per tonne that's $1.5m a year. Both sweeteners together would add up to a subsidy of $10.2m each year or, put another way, more than 255 jobs at $40,000 a year.

The aluminium smelting industry in Australia is almost 80 percent foreign owned. Even so, subsidies amount to more than $40,000 for every job, 'an extremely expensive form of regional employment creation'.

So with the silicon smelting industry, it shouldn't come as a surprise if we end up giving away our coal-generated electricity; and giving away our trees; so that overseas investors can go to the restaurant and spend up big on the flesh of whales that were harvested for scientific research. That would be nice to reflect on every time you paid an electricity bill. And would we still be in the running for a medal from the United Nations for our efforts with IYE 2002?

The project was declared State Significant to encompass the three elements, Cowra quartz, Lithgow smelter and the charcoal plant. If a perception of impartiality is fundamental to the principle of justice, is it right that a NSW State Government agency will arbitrate on this proposal which is being strenuously pushed by the State Government and vehemently opposed by the Eurobodalla Shire? Where is the Eurobodalla community's umpire?

Premier Carr wouldn't accept a delegation from Eurobodalla Shire Council. His defence was that receiving them could be construed as interference in the independence of the decision making process.

But since then the Premier told WIN News that tourism would not be affected by a charcoal plant in the region, and that 'a few extra truck movements on local roads won't be a deterrent'. In February it was announced to the Australian Stock Exchange that Australian Silicon was a preferred partner of NSW State Forests. So SFNSW hasn't kept away from 'interference in the decision' either.

Then a newspaper report of an unequivocal statement by Premier Carr that he was 'certain the development is environmentally sound - it's going ahead - it's as simple as that' attracted a rebuttal. The Premier issued a statement that 'the decision on whether the charcoal plant will go ahead will be made by the Minister after an exhaustive examination of the EIS with reference to the community submissions'. Not surprisingly, that rebuttal then attracted a rebuttal from the newspaper.

The onus is on the applicant to justify the development. There is sufficient expert scientific opinion to make it a reasonable bet that approval of this plant would attract a successful challenge to the Land and Environment Court. This leaves the NSW Government with some interesting options.

It could approve the plant, then pretend to 'tough it out' and let the Court make the 'anti-Lithgow' decision. But 'blaming the lawyers' would be an expensive way to soften the decision, and it's not the virile leadership that the community expects. As well, the press would find so much 'anti' evidence tendered to the court that it's likely the Government would be a laughingstock.

A second option is to not approve this plant, but work on some other location. The Government's opponents would see that as a short-sighted refusal to recognise that NSW can't produce silicon in an economically viable and environmentally acceptable way. But it would provide the government with breathing space.

Or as a third option, it could simply refuse the application, and work out what to do when the dust settles. There would be some derisive taunts, but all in all it might attract the least flak. It would finally allow the government to stop sending good money after the bad that's been spent since the quartz silica white elephant was found twenty years ago at Cowra, and turn to more profitable ventures. Such as ecotourism.

Richard Fisher March 11, 2002
The author has property interests within 3.5 km of the site.

Acknowledgements:
State and Local Government agencies.
Bay Post.
Canberra Times.
Sydney Morning Herald.
Eurobodalla Independent.
Dr Karin Geiselhart.
Australian Silicon Pty Ltd.
David Mackenzie MAIAST, CPAg ESC.
R.M. Rabbidge, BSc, ASTC.nt.
S. Jankovic BA, GCPR, ESTRADE P/L.
The Australia Institute.
Daily Telegraph.
Eurobodalla Sun.

The complete version of the paper with references is available on a PDF file