South Sister St. Marys, Tasmania

South Sister Correspondence

request declare intentions

From: Frances Daily
To: Graham Wilkinson
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 10:32 PM
[email addresses redacted]

Dear Graham,

Investigate new claims on the entire coupe or only the small, stable section of land at South Sister?

I am somewhat confused about your intentions regarding consideration of 'new information' presented to you.
In your letter of February 25, 2005 you stated that you would '... consider any new information that is relevant to the logging of the coupe'.
In your email below (February 20, 2006) you '... confirm that the FPA will continue to consider any new and substantive information relating to the proposed selective logging of a small, stable section of land at South Sister'. The bolding and underlining is mine as I am unsure about what you are describing. It may be Slide B that you refer to (Dr McIntosh insists Slide B is stable) or perhaps it could be the entire coupe. If so, then it would seem doubtful that you are aware of the instability of certain parts of the coupe e.g. Cardiff Mine (which is certainly not stable having visible subsidence), possible areas of subsidence over Jubilee Mine (outlined to you in an earlier email) and also the areas south of the coupe which are most certainly not stable (recent slides were mentioned by McIntosh, Stapledon, Rallings in their various reports of the past 12 months).

On February 10th 2006 you received an email from me outlining 'new information that is relevant to the logging of the coupe'.
This information included:

To date, you have not addressed this new information despite telling me in two emails that

'.....I do not find anything in your emails of 3rd and 10th February 2006 that would justify the expenditure of further public monies and resources on continuing investigations. To the contrary, the recent work done by Dr McIntosh only serves to confirm our original findings that the proposed operations have negligible environmental risk' (February 15, 2006)

and

'Expert advice was sought in relation to the information contained in your emails of 3rd and 10th February 2006. That expert advice confirmed again that the proposed operations have negligible risk.'

Dr McIntosh states in his report of February 15, 2006 that he '.... made a further field visit to the northeastern part of coupe NI114A on 8 February 2006'.

As my email regarding the 'new information' did not reach you until February 10th I assume that Dr McIntosh did not return to the coupe prior to completion of his February 15 report. As he said that he only visited the northeastern part of the coupe, I also assume that he did not visit the areas I have mentioned on February 8, 2006.

Therefore, can you please confirm to me whether 1) Dr McIntosh or anyone else has yet investigated the claims I raised regarding Jubilee mine and groundwater/surface water changes to the coupe and 2) if so, please can you forward their report?

The experts you mention below (except perhaps McIntosh) have not as far as I am aware, investigated any of the topics recently raised by me. Indeed four of these six experts have only been employed as consultants AFTER the forest practice plan was certified i.e. their 'expert' knowledge did not contribute in any way to a decision about certification of the plan.
It is also interesting to note that many experts from outside Tasmania have been asked to contribute yet the government department responsible for geology and landslips has seemingly not been consulted - or at least not involved in investigations of the coupe (if they have, then where are their reports?). If not, why not?

Again I state that I am stunned by the lack of readiness to ascertain whether 1) subsidence has occurred over the Jubilee Mine and 2) verification of the changes to groundwater observed by myself (and others) since roading nearly one year ago.

Please can you confirm for me my above questions as soon as possible?

Regards,

Frances

Cc: Paul Lennon
Brian Green
Rene Hidding
David Llewellyn
Michael Polley
Michael Hodgman
Tim Morris
Peg Putt
Environment Defenders Office
David Clement
Matt Denholm
Sue Neales
Peter McIntosh
Isobel Stanley
David Stapledon
Ralph Rallings

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