Fears for our big birds
THE period for public comment on the environmental impact statement for the Sun Cable project closes on July 15.
NT Field and Game has taken a keen interest in this from the time the final stage of its route was diverted from Livingstone to Gunn Point beach, as much of this area is magpie goose and waterfowl habitat.
Field and Game members are concerned that the overhead transmission lines will pose fatal bird strike consequences for birds with large wingspans, such as magpie geese, brolga and jabiru, especially where it intersects Black Jungle Reserve and traditional flight paths from Quambi Lagoon and Melacca Swamp to the coastal floodplain of Shoal Bay Coastal Hunting reserve.
We have contended that the variation from Litchfield to Gunn Point should be undergrounded, creating a utilities pipeline that would become a future asset that could also include water, power, communications infrastructure that the township of Murrumujuk could use in years to come.
The 44m-high towers will be an eyesore, especially where they pass within 200m to 300m of Noonamah, Lambell’s Lagoon and Herbert.
The sway of these cables can be quite extensive. This is what causes the major threat to our large birds, as do wind turbines on brolgas in western Victoria. I am unsure if this sway has been mitigated by a reduction in the spans between towers as the corridor clearance seems to have been drastically reduced since our last meeting.
I believe the undergrounding could also reduce the need to keep the corridor cleared for the next 70 years. This ongoing disturbance will surely distribute weeds such as gamba. This would reduce the ongoing costs of maintenance and the threat of cyclone damage to the OHTLs and towers.
It appears that the subsea cable stretching from Gunn Point to Singapore, a distance of 4200km will be buried in a trench, so it seems entirely feasible to me that undergrounding this 67km from Livingstone to Gunn Point is not too much of an ask by our government to save our large birds, visual amenity and prevent weed intrusion.
Other issues that I have noted in the EIS are the AAPowerLink could have residual impacts associated with alteration of the hydrological regimen of the seasonal swamp located southwest of the Darwin converter site at Gunn Point, and could have a residual impact to water quality in the seasonal swamp southwest of the Darwin converter site associated with increases in turbidity caused by erosion impacts predicted under the terrestrial environmental quality factor.
I hope to keep you abreast of what happens in a meeting I am having with Sun Cable staff on Friday.
NTFGA junior members get a free token to shoot today as part of school holiday activities. A 75-target simulated field event will be held next Sunday.
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