MOUNT Gambier’s largest industrial air polluter has slashed emissions by 60pc following the completion of an innovative multi-million dollar project.
OneFortyOne (OFO) Wood Products Jubilee mill is now fully compliant with air quality emissions regulations, according to new monitoring by the state’s environmental watchdog.
The integrated forestry company has installed cutting edge new systems using cyclonic technology to capture the fine particles from the emissions leaving the boilers.
Air pollution stemmed from the two 20-megawatt wood-fired boilers that produced heat and steam for the mill’s drying kilns.
But according to the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), monitoring now shows stack concentrations of particulates are less than 100mg per m3.
The news comes as the EPA releases a fresh warning about the use of domestic wood heaters, which is a major contributor to air pollution in Mount Gambier.
EPA regional delivery and operations planning manager Naomi Grey said the Jubilee timber mill had been a “long-standing” major contributor to air pollution in Mount Gambier.
“The EPA has worked with previous owners over a number of years as they tried to solve the problem, but it became apparent the site could not meet air quality requirements unless old equipment was replaced,” Ms Grey said.
“When OFO took over the mill, it was very pleasing to see the company was immediately willing to investigate how it could meet its environmental obligations.”
Ms Grey said OFO “followed up” with significant expenditure on new infrastructure and emissions had now been cut by 60pc, which was an “excellent outcome” for the community.
The Jubilee Highway mill is South Australia’s largest sawmill, covering 65ha and processing more than 750,000 m3 of timber per year.
It began operation in the late 1950s and was originally owned by the State Government, before being sold to private enterprise.
The EPA had worked with the previous owners – including Carter Holt Harvey – to try to solve the problem, placing an environment improvement program on the mill’s licence as far back as 2009.
OFO began negotiations to buy the mill in early 2017, which is the second largest of sawmill in Australia.
When the EPA became aware of the impending sale, staff immediately began discussions with the company about the requirement to improve air emissions at the mill.
OFO executive general manager Australia Cameron MacDonald said from the first meeting with the EPA, the company was committed to undertaking the necessary work for the mill to comply with air quality requirements.
“Meeting our environmental obligations was something we wanted to do as quickly as possible because we are committed not only to being environmentally sustainable, but also to investing in the communities where we operate,” Mr MacDonald said.
“This was the first significant project we completed after taking over the Jubilee Highway mill and it represents a $4m investment.”
The company carried out the design, fabrication and preparations last year, doing much of the work in-house with a dedicated specialist team before installing new filtration systems in the stacks during the 2018-19 Christmas shut-down.
With 40 small cyclones, it uses higher velocities to capture more of the fine ash than the mill’s old three-cyclone system.
The Dirty Truth Report – released late last year – revealed a number of timber processing sites in Mount Gambier were contributing to the city’s air pollution.
Pollutants include particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide and small traces of mercury and compounds
The largest contributors to air pollution from within the city’s timber processing sector at the time of the report’s release was the OneFortyOne (OFO) Jubilee sawmill site (67pc) and the Borg Manufacturing Lakeside site (22pc), which were both previously owned by Carter Holt Harvey.
“Significant” contributors to air pollution in Mount Gambier are slow combustion wood heaters, timber processing mills and vehicle traffic.
