Wind juggernaut

A SMALL item in the Mercury (January 30) outlines Singapore renewable Vena Energy’s 100 megawatt battery to be located at Wandoan in Queensland’s Western Downs Region. It will store 150 megawatthours of energy, from a nearby solar farm, enough to power 57,000 homes. Perhaps Epuron should reconsider its plan to install a visually and acoustically intrusive, and environmentally invasive, network of 67 turbines, each one 240m from ground to blade tip at St Patricks Plains, the gateway to the wild Central Plateau.

The already endangered wedge-tailed eagles will have no hope. I have not seen my three local eagles for over four months. They may have come off second-best against the Cattle Hill turbines.

The Environment Protection Authority Tasmania has issued project specific guidelines that Epuron must meet in its environmental impact statement in order to satisfy those who administer the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. From my reading of the National Wind Farm Commissioner’s 2018 Annual Report, it is virtually impossible to stop a proposal for a wind farm going ahead. Perhaps the Central Highlands Council will again make a courageous decision, as it did in the case of the Lake Malbena proposal, and refuse the wind farm. Jane Shoobridge-Malecky

Tods Corner