Culcairn Solar Farm

I do not support large solar industry been established on prime agricultural land at Culcairn. This land has proven to be highly productive in 2019 and for many years previously.
Establishing solar on this land takes away agricultural jobs, splits communities, creates potential fire hazards for our communities, trees will be removed with minimal tree line to replace 200year plus tree’s, local fauna will be destroyed, especially with all the panels and the glare and heat. Weed control on these solar farms are a concern for neighboring properties and for people who live on the water ways down stream, as seed from weeds have and will travel down into areas such as the Walla Walla swamp, and billabong creek.
Our family has been in this district for six generations and we have not experienced such Community unrest, this has caused many mental health problems to many people which is a great concern.

We believe that the project has great opportunities for the community particularly during construction as well as potential ongoing employment.

I object to the project because there is to many issues that haven't been addressed.
1. The project has a negative impact to the agricultural industry in the area and this area is predominately supported by the agricultural industry. There are agricultural industries/businesses in Walla Walla and Culcairn that rely on the local farmers to support them. They employ local people and not only do the industries/businesses support the local towns so do the people that they employ.
2. We should not be allowing solar panels to be anywhere near the billabong creek and there has been a lot of time and money spent creating riparian zones and wildlife corridors along the creek.
3. Why are they allowed to remove trees? This appears to be in direct conflict with the idealogy of having renewable energy from the solar panels. Trees produce oxygen and without them we die, these trees have been there for 100's of years and are an integral part of the ecosystem around them.
4. What consideration has been made to the increase in heat, the solar panels will potentially generate. As a nearby farmer will this affect my farms productivity.
5. A major concern is this carcinogenic properties of the solar panels and the impact this could have on human life. If these panels are to break and the material leaks into the soils near the billabong creek would there be potential for this to enter the main aquifer of the Culcairn township.
6. This land has been zoned as important agricultural land and yet this appears to be getting ignored. Im not allowed to build a big industrial shed on a block of land designated for residential so why is land zoned as important agricultural land allowed to be covered in solar panels.
7. there also appears to be issues with the manufacturing and decommissioning of the panels that need to be considered. where will they put over a million panels once the solar farm is decommissioned
8. there is also issues with supplying the power to the grid with current solar farms unable to achieve this adequately.
9. if a grass fire occurs how will this be controlled. given the summer we have just had and the lack of reducing fuel in forests etc this could be a similar problem, not to mention what hazardous materials could be leaked onto the ground or into the air when the fire is burning.
10. what measures will be put in place to ensure noxious weeds are managed.

DPIE Crown Lands provide the following comments:
Two Crown roads exist within the proposal area. Any Crown road associated with the proposal, for reasons of access; should be transferred to Greater Hume Shire Council. For any Crown Road proposed to be included in the proposal area, the applicant should make application to Crown Lands to close and purchase the road.
The proposal area appears to be outside the Billabong Creek area & associated riparian area; which exists on the northern boundary of the proposal area. If the proposal area is expected to occupy and impact the Creek, or its riparian zone in any way, then a licence application will need to be assessed by Crown Lands, authorising occupation of the land and consenting to any proposed works. The licence application process will need to be undertaken and completed prior to any works commencing.

As a local property owner, resident and ratepayer, I object to this project. Let me firstly affirm that I am a strong supporter of solar technology, when it is utilised at a small scale. e.g. installation at the business or residential premises. What I object to here is the massive scale of this industrial scale project. I object on both environmental, economic and community grounds.

This project, which is now only one of four that has been proposed in the Culcairn and Walla Walla areas, is absolutely massive. The proposal is about 11 times the size of the footprint of Walla Walla, and 7 times the size of the physical footprint of Culcairn. The distance between Culcairn and Walla Walla (this project is to be sandwiched between the two towns) is not a large distance, so this project will dwarf both towns and remove (for 30 years) a large amount of productive farming land that supports these 2 towns and their businesses and communities. And as I said, this is only one of 4 projects (from my understanding) that are proposed or being examined for this small corridor.

The word 'farms' when it comes to Industrial Solar complexes is a very misleading word. These are ugly eyesore technological industrial complexes that can severely degrade the amenity and views (and thus tourist potential) of our lovely quiet country areas. This project is not far from Morgan's Lookout, our lovely tourist attraction that looks over the area. Our farmland is productive here in Culcairn and Walla Walla, because we receive a good amount of rain. So, for the life of me, I cannot understand why NSW major projects would consider removing such a large amount of local productive farmland from our small area for decades to come, when just an hour's drive west of here there are farmers in drought, desperate to sell their land to the government and give up farming permanently, because the land is no longer suitable for farming, due to prolonged lack of rain. That is the place to put a solar farm. Of course a farmer here might also agree to lease their land, because the financial incentives to them to do so are huge. According to ABC news, someone with a 350 acre farm, which is not a large farm by any means, would earn close to 10 million dollars over the length of the 30 year contract with the provider. This is much more than they would earn farming that land, when allowing for the unpredictability of markets and weather, so of course a farmer would go for it.

Indeed one such farmer who would be enriched is a local member of council here, where the solar provider have been lobbying hard with presentations etc. (which causes me to question the integrity of the process, since it has occurred in the past that that individual votes on local councils are sometimes bought off in rural areas, or councillors selectively make individual investments based on advance knowledge, that allow them to profit down the track). However, when considering the wider community, including the business which rely on the local farmers, this project is a net loss. Those farmers will of course move off their land under the terms of the contract, and will effectively leave the community. That means their whole family leaves the community. i.e. the school loses students, the supermarket loses customers, as does the farming supplies store, the mechanics, the hairdresser, the pub, etc... etc... The few jobs in these basically automated plants provided by the foreign company that will operate the plant (from memory their estimate was 7 jobs) will obviously be specialised jobs that will not be filled by locals. These people will most likely travel around to check/maintain various plants, and will bring little to the local community, compared to what was lost.

These farms should go onto non-productive land, that farmers want to vacate. That would obviously be a win-win. It is just laziness, convenience and greed that cause these companies to want to put the solar farm in Culcairn and Walla Walla, because that is near the grid. But it is us, not these Solar Farm operators, and (no offence) not Sydney-based NSW government major projects decision-makers who have to live with these ugly eyesores for decades to come. I guarantee that any of those who will make this decision, would object, if this ugly industrial plant was to be built in their backyard and not ours, or next to their holiday farm, and not our permanent residences or community. We choose to live in the countryside for natural environment, not to have these ugly industrial complexes dwarfing our towns.

To give you an idea of the scale, since you probably live in a crowded city, just this one proposed project will have 1,000,000 solar panels. And for just one of the affected farmers, the 2 metre high fence will span 7KM of just one of the frontages of their property. And that is just one farm. Several farms are involved. Tens of kilometers of border fencing in total. That is the massive scale that we are talking about here. Do some google searches and read some of the ABC News articles about this project. Environmentally speaking, if you check the records properly, the sheep grazing trial on solar farm land that this foreign company is proudly trumpeting was run by the construction company that will construct their solar farm. What a sham. Of course the construction company, that plans to make huge profits from this project, has a vested interest in a vested outcome. If that doesn't fail the pub test, then I don't know what does.

This project, (which runs along large sections of our only decent local creek, Billabong Creek), will involve the erection of a 2 metre border fence over a massive massive amount of land around the project. How will native animals pass through that 2 metre fence? The answer is, they can't. What will happen to the native animals (e.g. Wombats etc...) already living inside that massive area, as it's all dug up to install these concrete footings and steel pylons, and then fenced in? Of course, the answer is, they'll be killed or will subsequently die. The solar company will tell you that they will leave a bit of a corridor next to the river for animal access, but when you factor in the kilometers and kilometers of border fence that will go in to the whole project, and the fact that some areas are not safe for native animals to cross due to roads (or are just not crossable due to other physical man-made borders), many native animals will obviously not be able to find their way to that water source any longer (not to mention all the existing dams that will disappear from farming land), and they will die. The detour required for many native animals is just not realistically doable. And then you expand the footprint of this one proposed solar farm into the 4 projects that are now proposed for this small area, as every industrial scale solar provider jumps all over this free-for-all in our local community. That expansion takes huge swaths of land out of our quite small and narrow corridor between our towns. That land grab, will ultimately devastate our local community, economy and natural environment.

There are recent audit reports out there from government sources that clearly indicate that solar farms provide no net benefit to local communities. And speaking of benefit to local (or national communities, or the economy), why in heaven's name would we let a completely foreign company come in to Australia and build and own our own energy network infrastructure like this, and take all that money overseas. Are we fools? Where is the national interest and sustainability in that? A friend who went to one of the consultation sessions told me that every single company representative / employee that they met, was French. i.e. not a local person or a local job. Finally, environmentally and sustainability speaking, my understanding is that there is no completed coordinated understanding or plan across NSW regarding where these solar plans should go, and why. If you just keep taking a piecemeal approach to this type of decision-making, (i.e. project by project) but then you end up cramming all these projects into such a small space, with one basically next to another, the combined and cumulative community, economic and environmental effects can end up being nothing short of devastating. And remember, you are making a 30 year commitment here. So, please use your brains and knock this and these back, until a proper, robust, complete, and coordinated plan can be developed regarding which solar farms should go into which areas, how many can be in any one area, what maximum size they can be, and what the (combined/cumulative/compounding) environmental effects will be. Otherwise, you're just destroying our future.

Good Afternoon Rob,
Please refer to attached submission outlining APA's requirements for the proposed development.
Any questions, feel free to give me a call.
Kind regards,
Ben Setchfield
APA Group
Infrastructure Planning and Protection
Senior Urban Planner
T: 07 3223 3385
M: 0472 829 943
E: [email protected]

Biodiversity & Conservation Division response attached

I very strongly object to the Culcairn solar farm for the following reasons * its placement on very productive agricultural land.*the effect on neighbouring farmers and their enterprises.*the increased risk of fire to neighbours and local community.*the loss of flora and fauna especially with the recent effect of January fires in this shire.*farmers in this area are very proactive in weed management eg silver nightshade and this development could destroy all their good work and make impossible to control.
I am not opposed to renewable energy but there are many flat unproductive land areas which would be be better suited to this sized development which would not have such a negative impact on so many. With the current drought this area has still been able to produce hay, grain and meat when many others could not. This is not the right area.

I am in full support of this proposal.
In this time of climate change and the huge need to use sustainable energy sources; it is in Australia's best interest to allow this project go ahead. This project will significantly help to reduce the reliance on fossil fuel energy use in the area and provide a cleaner energy supply.
This project is a step in the right direction for providing a cleaner more sustainable future.

Response attached

I support the Culcairn Solar Farm. I believe it will bring work to the area during the construction and maintenance phase, as farms employ very few people in comparison. It will enable the landowner to have a secure income that will enable his land to be viable, just as many farmers have an off-farm source of income, indicating that their land is not a viable concern. It will provide cheap power for our use. The proponents can not be held responsible for the failure of the energy infrastructure to cater for the modern and emerging power generation industry.

Many farmers who are objecting to the Solar farm have a personal interest in opposing it. For instance one farmer who has a place for wedding receptions on their farm (an off-farm revenue source) said that the Solar farm will destroy the view for wedding photos. That, I take to mean, is that they have using their neighbours land as a backdrop. I wonder if they asked permission or made some form of recompense for the use.
Many farmers have off-farm revenue, such as one person in the family works at an off farm job, others undertake contract harvesting. The owner of the proposed site says that his land is not viable, as it is, and he already has an outside job.

I received a flier in my mailbox which I have attached. There is no name of individuals or groups that circulated this. I do not agree with many of their statements finding them not based in fact, are hypothetical, subjective statement or emotive in nature.
In response to the issues mentioned in the flier, which is against the proposal, I make the following comments to refute their stance as I believe a lot of these points will be expressed by people against the Solar Farm.
Under the heading "Site Selection" the first dot point makes it clear it is a case of NIMBY. The fourth dot point does not take into account that it is not the proponents fault if Australia's aging infrastructure is still based on "hub and spoke" idea. The fifth dot point has nothing to do with the Solar Farm and is a red herring.
Under the heading "Agriculture" dot points 3 and 4 are hypothetical are not even in the 'pipeline' to achieve. The fifth dot point is emotive and plays on recent catastrophes. The seventh dot point is irrelevant. There are far more stressful situations that the farmers face, for example, the drought and ongoing financial viability of farms. Lumping them with a hypothetical source of stress of the Solar Farm is not relevant. The 8th dot point has nothing to do with the Solar Farm, but the trend in the viability of doing business in rural areas. The 10th dot point is subjective and is not based on facts such as the farms in this area are mixed cropping and animal raising. If sheep can not be compared to cropping, why do many, if not all, farmers raise animals?
Under the heading of "Environment" there are some admirable statements but no information on what the farmers have done.
Under the heading "Visual Impact" the first 3 dot points are purely subjective and are comparable to a recent Federal Treasurer who said windmills are an eyesore. The 4th dot point is a statement of the bleeding obvious! Dot point 5 does not state why vegetation screening is inadequate and once again is subjective in nature. The 6th dot point once again lumps the "mental anguish" on the Solar Farm, rather than more pressing problems famers face. I doubt if farmers lie awake at night over the Solar Farm, but they may over the drought and financial viability. The 7th dot point implies that the people against the Solar farm do not want change or the use of new technology to help "Live a Greater Life".
The photo caption at the bottom of the page is extremely subjective.
Under the heading "Roads and Traffic" it is interesting to note that there is no comparison with existing road use such as we experience every year during harvest.
The statement in bold "See past the misleading marketing, fancy brochures and community enticements." is subjective and could well also apply to this flier.

Finally, stopping the advance of new technology has had a history of people opposing them simply because it is new technology, for instance the cottage weavers in England smashed the new looms because they were more efficient . These people were called Luddites. When the car took the place of horses many people decried the loss of jobs. The jobs that were lost were the street cleaners who picked up the horse droppings!!
I support the Culcairn Solar Farm and the benefits it will bring to the area.

This proposal is way too big for the location and because of its size it will affect neighbours more than necessary.
The Greater Hume Shire has been the best producing agricultural area in the state for fodder and grain.
There has been a huge amount fodder provided this year for local, drought and fire areas.
This area has been built from agriculture and the loss of product will have a flow on affect to many agricultural businesses.

This solar farm has created a lot of conflict in the community.
I believe that solar panels should be located on the rooves of every house in towns and cities and should not be on agricultural land.
I have a strong knowledge of the local Walla Walla and Culcairn farming areas and know the land proposed for this development to have good yielding crops.
There was no need to seek multiple landowners, if this proposal was only 100 hectares or so it would probably not be of such great significance and impacts to neighbours and the surrounding community would be able to have suitable mitigation. At this size the impacts will be far too great.
Bushfire issues are also greatly concerning for the neighbours and towns.