David Brooks Chairman Parkesbourne/Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc
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Parkesbourne/Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc. Submission re Gullen Range Wind Farm Modification Application 07_0118 MOD 1 Rev. 1, May 2014 1 Declarations This submission is made on behalf of Parkesbourne/Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc. PO Box 1237, Goulburn, NSW 2580 Tel.: 02 4829 2346 David Brooks Chairman Parkesbourne/Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc. Political donations: Parkesbourne/Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc. does not make political donations. There are no political donations to declare. David Brooks Privacy: I have read the Department’s Privacy Statement and agree to the Department using my submission in the ways it describes. I understand this includes full publication on the Department’s website of my submission, any attachments, and any of my personal information in those documents, and possible supply to third parties such as state agencies, local government and the proponent. David Brooks 2 Personal interest: Although I am making this submission on behalf of Parkesbourne/Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc., I also have a personal interest, as I am a neighbour of the Gullen Range Wind Farm. In the original Environmental Assessment (2008), as in other documents concerning this development, including the Modification Application, my house is designated G43. In the original EA it is said that my house is 1.7 kilometres from the nearest turbine. According to the Modification Application, the nearest turbine, GUR_01, is now 1680 metres from my house, having moved 2 metres closer to it as a result of the modification. Also, according to the Modification Application, there are 5 turbines within 2 kilometres of my house, and 13 within 3 kilometres. From my knowledge of the experiences of neighbours of other existing wind farms, and of the experiences of Gullen Range neighbours where turbines have already been allowed to operate, and from my reading of scientific and professional articles and reports of peer- reviewed status, I expect that I and my neighbours will suffer adverse noise impacts from the operation of the wind farm, and that in some cases this will lead to adverse health effects, probably stress-related symptoms and sleep disturbance. David Brooks 14 May 2014 3 Contents 1. Summary 5 2. The need for a public inquiry 1: the matter of the turbine re-locations 8 3. The need for a public inquiry 2: noise 21 4. The need for a public inquiry 3: health 40 5. The need for a public inquiry 4: visual 51 6. The need for a public inquiry 5: land value 52 7. Conclusions and recommendations 54 Appendix A 55 Appendix B 60 Appendix C 63 References for the Appendices 75 4 Summary On behalf of Parkesbourne/Mummel Landscape Guardians Inc. (PMLG) I object to the Modification Application 07_0118 MOD 1 submitted by the proponent of the Gullen Range Wind Farm, Gullen Range Wind Farm Pty Ltd (GRWF). 1. The need for a public inquiry into the matter of unauthorised turbine re-locations I submit that there should be no modification application, and that the Department of Planning & Infrastructure should consider no modification application in connection with the Gullen Range Wind Farm. Instead, all further assessment of the Gullen Range Wind Farm should be suspended, pending an independent public inquiry into the matter of the unauthorised turbine re-locations of the Gullen Range Wind Farm. The grounds for such an independent public inquiry are: • that the proponent has deliberately violated condition 1.5 of the Project Approval • that the Department of Planning has failed to prevent that violation • that the “independent” Environmental Representative to the project has had an extreme conflict of interest, being a Director of a consultancy that has been employed by the proponent on this very wind farm project since 2007 • that the “independent” Environmental Representative, having an extreme conflict of interest, should never have been appointed by the Director-General of the Department of Planning, and was wrongly appointed • that the Department of Planning wrongly facilitated the wrongful appointment of the aforesaid “independent” Environmental Representative by using the words “independent of the design, construction and operation personnel” in condition 7.1 of the Project Approval, these being words that apparently serve to enable someone not independent of the proponent to be appointed • that the Department of Planning has failed to order a halt to the construction of illegally located turbines, but has allowed the proponent to continue to erect turbines in unauthorised locations • that the Department of Planning has failed to order that all illegally located turbines not operate • that the proponent claims to be contributing already to the national Renewable Energy Target and, if so, must be earning Renewable Energy Certificates illegally by the operation of illegally located turbines In view of the above facts, an independent public inquiry is needed to determine (i) whether or to what extent the Department of Planning is guilty of misconduct in its oversight of the Gullen Range Wind Farm project; (ii) whether or to what extent the proponent Gullen Range 5 Wind Farm Pty Ltd is guilty of any fraud, or attempted fraud; and (iii) whether or to what extent any parties are guilty of corruption in law. In view of these matters, one issue that needs to be investigated by the independent public inquiry is whether the Department of Planning’s willingness to allow the proponent to submit a modification application after the Project Approval has been flagrantly violated, as if to provide itself, the Department, with an opportunity to give retrospective legitimacy to a deliberate violation of the Project Approval, itself constitutes misconduct on the part of the Department of Planning; and, if so, whether the proponent was complicit in this. Another matter that requires determination by an independent public inquiry is the current dispute between the proponent GRWF and the Department of Planning. The Department considers that the turbine re-locations are unauthorised, and that the proponent needs to submit a modification application in respect of them. The proponent insists that the turbine re-locations are consistent with the existing approval, and that consequently it does not need to seek further assessment and approval by a modification application. This is a serious matter of law, of how the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, 1979 should be interpreted. As it is a matter of general principle that will apply to other instances of development projects, it requires clear determination. This can only be resolved by an independent public inquiry. I suggest that, given the gravity of the above matters, the independent public inquiry should be at least a Judicial Commission. It should be instituted as soon as possible by the Minister for Planning. 2. Further grounds for an independent public inquiry The matter of the unauthorised turbine re-locations is sufficient ground in itself to justify an independent public inquiry. However, if there is to be such an inquiry, it would be wise for its terms of reference to be extended to cover the entire history of the Gullen Range Wind Farm project, from its proposal through its assessment and approval to its construction and operation. There are two reasons for this. One reason is that there are already ample grounds in current and past research to hold that the assessment of the project was unreliable, and that the consequent approval of the project was unsafe. Moreover, it is not just a matter of the assessment and approval of this particular project being unreliable and unsafe. It is the whole assessment regime for wind energy projects in NSW that is inadequate. The noise guidelines that have been adopted to assess the noise impacts of wind turbines in NSW – the so-called South Australian Noise Guidelines (2003) – are demonstrably inadequate to protect neighbours from adverse noise impacts. The principles on which the assessment of visual impact is performed are intellectually frivolous. 6 The principles on which the estimation of possible impact on land value is carried out are clearly flawed, and are not such as to enable an accurate estimate to be made. Aspects of the assessment of impacts on biodiversity also cannot be taken seriously. Thus, the assessment and approval of wind energy projects in NSW have generally been lacking in intellectual and moral integrity, and this is as true of the assessment and approval of the Gullen Range project as of other wind farm projects in NSW. Therefore, an independent public inquiry into the Gullen Range Wind Farm project would be an opportunity to examine critically the whole assessment regime for wind energy in NSW, to reform that assessment regime, to give integrity to the assessment of the proposals of this industry, and to provide justice to rural residents who have already suffered, or who are likely to suffer, from the inadequate assessment of wind energy projects hitherto. The second reason for extending the terms of reference of the public inquiry is that if an investigation into the unauthorised turbine re-locations were to find that officials in the Department of Planning were guilty of misconduct, and if that misconduct were to be the effect of an improper bias in favour of developers’ interests, then that finding would be a prima facie reason for suspecting that a similar bias were responsible for the many and various deficiencies in the assessment and approval of the Gullen Range Wind Farm. It would also be reasonable to suspect that any bias on the part of Departmental officials must manifest itself in inadequate compliance monitoring of the project. There is already ample evidence that the compliance monitoring of the project has been inadequate hitherto, if not non-existent – witness the moving of the locations of 95% of the turbines of the Gullen Range Wind Farm to unauthorised locations.