Birriwa Solar Farm

I see no sense in large projects placing their footprint on prime agricultural land, that reduces food security and safety. We have literally millions of roofs that have space available for roof top solar installation, and are not being used. One of the lowest take up regions in NSW is in the series of TEAL seats in Sydney, that are NOT contributing to energy production and could. This is a far better use of space, a lesser impost onto regional communities and a better use of resources.

I would like to express my objection to this project for the following reasons.
The development of the Renewable Energy Zones in general have not been properly planned and the communities involved were not consulted prior to announcement with little respect shown to these communities.

The proposed project is on good productive agricultural land, land that will be invaluable in the future for our food security. The many impacts on surrounding agriculture production and the neighbours, people involved is questionable.

There are too many proposed projects for this one area turning our beautiful landscape and environment into an industrial zone and destroying our land values. These projects should be placed closer to the point of consumption and utilize land already degraded by coal mining.

There is a better way with Micro Renewables that have been proven to work in Holbrook and Yackandandah.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Objections;
1. The proposed area is some of the finest prime agricultural land in Australia.
2. 2. The visual aspect will be appalling for the entire district.
3. It would mean lack of employment for many many agricultural people which would then have a flow on effect to the whole town & district in the form of local businesses, schools, sporting fixtures, churches & the like.
4. It would also be a major fire danger due to the fact that there are no people living within that vast area & local habitats for birds & animals would be destroyed.
5. 5. I consider it to be a huge waste of money as we still are not aware of the costs of transmission lines.
6. What happens to to all these solar panels & wind farms when they rust out in a few years & what about land fill then?
I therefore object in the strongest terms to this major project of the Birriwa/ Dunedoo Wind & Solar Farm.
Thank you for your attention.
Signed James Muller

I’m part of the Central west cycle trail which will be severely affected if this project goes ahead . I’m concerned that our area will look like an industrial wasteland and no longer a beautiful scenic route which has greatly contributed to our local tourism .
As an accomodation provide I also object to the proposed workers camp as it will result in no economic benefit to our region and detract from our town of Dunedoo.
With thanks
Sally

Please find a summary of concerns in relation to the proposed Birriwa solar development
1. Uncertainty of the project due to the renewable energy zone transmission line development application not being determined
There are multiple occasions where the documentation refers to items being determined once the transmission line has been approved. This is inequitable to all citizens and inappropriate public administration. Without proper consultation and detailed assessment of these unanswered questions it is entirely inappropriate to proceed.
The cumulative impacts of the EnergyCo Transmission line have not yet been determined. Without the transmission line being determined, it is inappropriate to consider cumulative impact.
2. Direct and indirect economic impacts of the removal of 1,330 hectares of agricultural and from our community
The economic and environmental needs to be fully assessed and comprehensively modelled; maters like the impact the locality of Birriwa and the impacts on the Dunedoo community at large. This documentation does not properly consider these impacts including businesses effected and employment impacts
3.Road access
There is reference to the upgrade of roads, which will undoubtably bring additional financial burden on Council and ultimately ratepayers who have to bear the costs of future road maintenance
4.Insurance
The back burning of stubble after harvest is standard procedure for the annual cropping practices. A solar development on the adjoining land will place a greater burden on insurance costs and will probably make the possibility of insurance too expensive if it can be procured. Ultimately the democratic right to grow crops might be denied because insurance becomes prohibitive in cost or even unavailable.
5. Housing affordability impact & reduced availability of rental places
On farms housing provides an important housing option in this region and this locality is specifically serviced with a bus run accessible during flood events and contributing towards its attractiveness to live. This is not the case for all areas around Dunedoo. The number of dwellings available for rental will be reduced by the project. This will reduce the supply and affordability of rentals.

6. Other
There are a range of other matters that need comprehensive consideration including:
• Aboriginal objects
• Potential flooding impacts
• Wildlife safety
• Optimum use of land
• Impact on neighbouring properties
• Visual impact
• Complexity of the documentation on pubic exhibition

Please refer to attachment

1. Reduced stock numbers and acreage for cereal crops. Most of the good grazing country is taken up by solar panels, which will cause less production of stock (meat) & crops (grain).
2. The ongoing effects from less livestock & grain production will generate a domino effect of:- less farmers to live and work in the area, less children to attend our schools, less livestock for the very viable local saleyards, impact on the small businesses who supply the local area with seed, fertilizer, fuel groceries, etc.
3. Solar panels cause more runoff from rain causing erosion to the area where the panels are and also to the paddocks in close proximity where there are no panels. Erosion will be hard to fix where the solar panels are and more importantly the surrounding gullies and creeks will run harder and faster, causing more problems on the local roads, causeways and bridges.
4. Farmers are very mindful of looking after their land and looking after the environment – the Birriwa Solar Farm is taking over this prime agricultural land for renewable energy which is needed, but at what cost to the community and environment in this area?
5. My nine year old granddaughter who lives in Sydney tells me she loves to come here and stay to play in the bush, see all the native flora, listen to the birds and other sounds. She likes to ride her horse, milk the cow, see the shearing and often comments on how quiet it is here on the farm, but there is so many things to do.
6. With the introduction of the solar farm all this will change our lives by increasing traffic, people working on the construction and maintaining the panels etc after construction.
7. Grave concern with bushfires – reduced access to where the solar panels are, will make it much more difficult to contain a bushfire. Who is going to carry out maintenance to reduce fire hazard within the solar farm?
8. Home and farm security may be compromised by having a very large increase in the population during the construction stage and maintaining the solar farm for years to come.

The Area has a long history of being a rural community.
It is a stunning rural space, with high rainfall, which grows and supports vast agricultural and grazing recourses.
A solar farm of this size would destroy the essence of the area and the ongoing activity and further potential for the rural community to flourish, for the benefit of all in the state , if not the nation.

I object to this project given it is taking away prime agricultural land which in turn results in further amplification of the disparities between those communities that are generating an income and those that are not. This in turn creates more people within rural communities who are requiring government benefits, what are the long term costs to the Australian community? Finally, these solar farms will break down communities and mean the remaining farmers and families will be left with no services and ammenities. In conclusion, there is no place for this solar farm in Birriwa.

I am objecting to this project because it is taking away prime agricultural land
In the long term what is going to happen to the amenties in the community

Taking away agricultural land

I reject this proposal because it will lower the value of nearby farms and because once the Birriwa Solar Farm is complete, it will have to remain there.

This and all renewable enegy projects in our district amount to enviromental social and economic vandalism, the price to pay for this development is too high.These projects should not be located on such productive agricultural lands with relatively safe rainfall,in areas of significant enviomental wealth and in small communities that can not withstand the impacts forced upon them.
The damage that will be caused to the local community is unforgivable.I could go on and on about every specific error omission or plain lie contained in the eis but no one is listening,the government has enabled law so these projects can proceed to become reality, time shall show them to be fools.Time shall show all those who pushed for and allowed these projects to go ahead to be fools.It is at a huge cost to us all and the generations to come.Solar and wind power generation are useful particularly where there is no alternative but they are inadequate unreliable and expensive when transmission enviromental and community cost is included.Look at the whole picture when making a sensible decision.There are better solutions to power generation that will benefit the enviroment,the people and our nation as a whole.I could also go on with all the negative aspects to this specific development ,the proponents again have side stepped the negative impacts through omission lies and a general down playing of those impacts planning requires them to address and mitigate.I like the majority of the community could not be bothered.Do not assume you have social licence because you don't. If you seriously require social licence why not test it.Or dont you want to really know?

See attachment

Objection to Birriwa Solar Farm
• Removing 1,330 hectares of Prime Agricultural Land, which will reduce the capacity to grow cereal crops and graze cattle which are both very important for the sustainability of food both domestically and overseas.
• The proposal will greatly impact the environment, flora & fauna.
• A huge visual impact on the landholders surrounding the Solar Farm.
• More information needed as to who is responsible to decommission the project when it reaches it life span. The EIS states there are no facilities in Australia that can recycle solar panels, so where will all the solar panels, stands, underground materials, batteries, wire cabling end up?
• The goal posts are moving - Transgrid/Energy Co. When this Solar Farm and the Central West Orana renewable energy zone was initially proposed it was much smaller. Now the area of the solar farm has increased as well as the high voltage Power Lines – now saying there will be both 300kV and 500kV lines side by side.
• Too many construction workers, the EIS states a cumulative workforce for four projects is around 4,026, this does not even account for the construction workforce for the transmission line. Our small communities cannot handle this huge number of employees during construction and ongoing running of the solar farm (there are significant other renewable energy projects with a small area from Birriwa to Gulgong, where will they all be housed?
• There will be an enormous social impact on our community. Traffic will increase and have an impact on native fauna and livestock.
• I am very concerned about the employee work health and safety practices undertaken by these construction workforce companies.

Our objections are contained in the attachment.

Letter is attached

Please refer to the attachment

• Loss of more and more arable land (only 4%- 6% exists now in all of Australia) as more and more such projects are concentrated in rural agricultural areas.


• Increased traffic congestion and local road damage by heavy vehicles and temporary workers vehicles.
• Visual impact on surrounding homes (more particularly residences noted as R3 and R5) that are less than 1 km away. The EIS mentioned the planting of vegetation/ trees around the area to screen the panels from road users and homes. There is no mention on the height of the trees, type of trees, how the trees are going to be maintained to keep them alive and the distance between the trees. How long is it going to take for the trees to grow and “affectively” reduce visual impact? The visual impact on the houses is unacceptable. The lack of care for fellow Australians regarding visual impacts is alarming. The application should be dismissed.

• Increased bush and grass fire risks. There is mention that the RFS attended a meeting. There is no confirmation from RFS that the solar works does not increase fire risk to surrounding houses and lands.

Loss of wildlife habitation. The cumulative effect of high fences around Beryl solar farm, Stubbo solar farm, Birriwa solar farm and the numerous other proposed fenced renewable energy projects is causing loss of habitat for native animals forever.

• Lack of ongoing employment and decrease in local employment for small communities as demand for farming services fall. The document states that there will be twenty (20) employees after completion of the works. Will these be locally based and will they be working full time? The local agriculture work-based businesses and Rural agricultural shops have lost work that have been ongoing for generations. This does not benefit the community.

• Reduced tourism as lack of accommodation is caused by temporary workers for projects.

• Reduced lack of tourism business because of change of the historical nature of Gulgong. Gulgong attracts visitors who come to experience the local heritage and Gulgong annual heritage festival. Cumulative solar works around the small historic town will destroy the history that need to be preserved.

• High risk of communities being left with the very substantial decommissioning costs at the projects end-of-life.
• Increasing use of slave labour in the Congo and China to provide and process materials (e.g. cobalt and copper)

• Increased greenhouse gas emissions generated by the creation, installation, and disposal of solar, wind turbines and batteries
• Increased global mining of required (to produce solar panels) in previously untouched wilderness areas, damaging the environment.
• Concentration of soil and water contamination (solar panels are declared as e-waste in Victoria, EU and other places)
• As nearly all renewables hardware is imported there is little Australian financial benefit in these projects.
• Scarce water diverted from agriculture for dust suppression during construction and for ongoing solar panel cleaning
• Increased electricity bills as the intermittent renewables require duplicated alternate sources of generation when the sunshine and wind are limited or non-existent

• Each year, more and more of taxpayer’s money is used to subsidise and prop up renewables which Australia already utilise via roof top electricity for decades.

• The EIS does not state the carbon output of the process from mining for solar panel production material, production of panels in industries located abroad, transportation of raw materials from developing countries to production countries, transportation of panels from production country to Australia, transportation of panels to Birriwa. How much carbon is going to be offset by the plant and in the timeframe for that is not included in the EIS.

Loss of property values. Who wants to buy close to a solar farm. Fellow Australians worked hard for their properties. Appropriate buffer zones between solar works and unrelated land should be considered.

Cumulative noise effect of millions of turning solar panels spread over large tracts of land around Gulgong town and private residence.


The EIS state that the impacts of the project are only during construction phase. This is not correct. The loss in property values, impact of fences on wildlife habitat, visual impact , noise to residents, fire risk and many other effects detailed above will be felt for the duration of solar works lifetime.

Please refer to the attached paper for more reasons to support my objection.

I lease a property located at Merotherie. I object to this project for several reasons.
I feel that the scale of the project (and other projects that will be directly linked to this one) has been significantly concentrated in our particular area.
The scale of the workforce required for such projects is doing to drastically increase traffic and impede stock movements between paddocks utilising main roads, which we now currently do, and will be a major safety issue.
Aside from the visual impact, I am also concerned about any ongoing health effects that living and working in close proximity to infrastructure related to transferring the electricity - such as massive power lines and a major energy hub, will have on me and my family.
You can't eat electricity - the project is covering large areas of productive farming land that has been producing food and textiles for hundreds of years.