Hills of Gold Wind Farm

Please see Objection letter attached

Submission to NSW Government Planning, Industry and Environment in response to Hill of Gold (SSD-9679) Notice of Exhibition.

I submit this response both on behalf of my wife and I and our Family Farming operations trading as CJ and MC Eagles.

My wife (Maureen Carmel Eagles) and I object to the planning submission due to the the significant breaches of both NSW State Planning Guidelines.

NSW State Planning Guidelines

The Hills of Gold Wind Farm pre-lodgement process has significantly breached the NSW State Planning Guidelines
To Quote from the NSW Wind Energy Guideline Dec 2016:
1.1 Purpose of the Wind Energy Guideline
Consultation with communities, proponents and other stakeholders is an integral part of the assessment process for SSD wind energy projects. This Guideline also provides guidance to the community, proponents and consent authorities in understanding the level of engagement expected from proponents of SSD wind energy projects.
(Page 2 NSW Wind Energy Guideline Dec 2016)
Further
Figure 1. Summary of the typical assessment and approval process for SSD
Preliminary consultation with affected individuals and communities to identify community values, environmental or land use constraints and opportunities in the project area, and inform the siting and design process.
(Page 9 NSW Wind Energy Guideline Dec 2016)
Further
4.1 Scoping and pre-lodgement
It should be noted that early consultation with the community should not be limited to one aspect of a project. Consultation with a range of potentially affected stakeholders could be undertaken to identify the constraints and opportunities of the project area. Consultation could involve engagement on the values the wider community place on those attributes, in order to inform project siting and design. For example, consultation could be undertaken with local councils, heritage groups, farming groups, environmental groups and business chambers. This may include inviting stakeholders to rank or value attributes such as access to the site, surrounding land uses, landscape values, geology, hydrology, soils, biodiversity, and wind resource location. There are a range of methodologies for how this could be undertaken. Such consultation should occur before the project siting and design is finalised so that it informs the siting and design process.
Setting a broad design framework and seeking the views of affected landowners at the scoping stage will result in a more responsive wind energy development, and can minimise or avoid issues arising during the assessment process.
Proponents must go through this iterative design process in order to identify the most appropriate locations for the final siting of specific turbines in a project, based on the quality of the wind resource and the results of their consultation. Proponents are required to articulate and describe this process and relevant learnings in the EIS.
Scoping these details upfront also enables the Department to prepare SEARs that are appropriately targeted but also provide sufficient flexibility to vary and refine the proposal through the assessment process.
(Page 10 NSW Wind Energy Guideline Dec 2016)
These Guidelines have significantly been breached in the consultation, or more correctly, lack of consultation, phase for this Project.
The TIMOR Community was not consulted at all.
The first time that the residents of Timor, became aware of the considerable impacts the Project will have on the Timor community*, was after public release of the Public Submission of Project Plans. Up until this point, the community had assumed the Hills of Gold Project would only impact the Nundle side of the Liverpool range, and indeed not the Range ridgeline itself. The community has not been consulted in relation to the Project, despite the considerable adverse impacts the Project is likely to have on our community/landholdings/ residences/families/livelihood.
Examples of such adverse impacts include (but are not limited to):
• high risk of irreparable and devastating impacts on threatened species and flora habitats in the affected region,
• unacceptable risks and threats to local natural water sources (in a community that is still suffering and has been utterly devastated by drought conditions over the past few years),
• high potential for wind turbine nightlights/disruption,
• noise and vibrations impacts,
• significant visual impact,
• threat of erosion and landslides,
• reduction of fire fighting capability in escarpments due to aerial support restrictions,
• and risks and diminution in land values.
The Project’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) states that the Upper Hunter Council (the Council) has been consulted on the project, with a member of Council, Christine Robinson, having been on this Project’s Community Consultative Committee (the CCC), for several years. Yet as stated above, the local community as a whole (being key stakeholders to the Project) has had no prior notice regarding the potential impacts the Project could have on our region and community, which will directly impact all of us.
The Timor region in which we live are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of this Project – the 70 wind turbines are proposed to sit on the Crawney ridge line. Yet the Timor community has been completely shut out of any community consultation process whatsoever and utterly ignored – in complete and fundamental breach of NSW Planning Guidelines for Wind Farms. This lack of requisite community engagement with key stakeholders to the Project constitutes a fundamental breach of process.
The EIS for this Project is totally inadequate and at times misleading. There has been no noise and vibrations testing enacted on the Timor side of the Project area. There has been no public visual impact assessment for the Timor community of this Project. The water and soil impact assessments conducted by the Proponent are woefully inadequate for a community for which the Isis River and any and all available natural watercourses that flow into it are our life blood - at a time when our community is still suffering terrible economic, physical and mental hardship from the devastating effects of the past few years of drought.

This Project should be rejected for failure to comply with the NSW State Planning Guidelines.



*Of the community only Graeme and Liz Watts and Chris and Maureen Eagles have had contact with the Proponent “Wind Energy Partners”, the latter for the first time in May 2020, at least 2.5 years after the planning processes of this Project had been underway. The rest of the community has not had any communication regarding this proposed Project.

My wife (Maureen Carmel Eagles) and I object to the planning submission due to the multiple and significant breaches of the Upper Hunter Shire Council’s Development Control Plan.
This Project fundamentally breaches a number of the Upper Hunter Councils LEP 2013 guidelines and processes in dealing with this project.
In particular, On Page 108, Section 6.2.4.2, of the EIS for the Hills of Gold Wind Farm, we read from the Upper Hunter Shire Local Environmental Plan (LEP) (2013), the Council’s principal environmental planning document, has the following central aims:
a) “ to encourage the proper management, development and conservation of natural and human -made resources in the Upper Hunter by protecting, enhancing and conserving the following -
i) important agricultural resources,
ii) timber, minerals, soil, water and other natural resources
iii) the environmental, scenic and cultural heritage of the Upper Hunter,

b) to protect and conserve -
i) soil stability by controlling development in accordance with land capability, and
ii) remnant native vegetation, and
iii) water resources, water quality and wetland areas, natural flow patterns and their catchments and buffer areas,

c) to establish a pattern of broad development zones as a means of -
i) separating incompatible uses, and
ii) minimising the cost and environmental impact of a development, and 
iii) maximising efficiency in the provision of utility, transport, retail and other services

e) to promote ecologically sustainable urban and rural development and control the development of flood liable land

g) to protect, enhance and provide for biological diversity, including native threatened species, populations and ecological communities, by long term management and by identifying and protecting habitat corridors and links throughout the Upper Hunter.”
The Proposed Project does not meet any of these aims and clearly contravenes them. The destruction of the habitat corridor between the Crawney Pass National Park and Ben Halls Gap reserves is the polar opposite to “protecting habitat corridors”. We draw attention to the Crawney Pass National Park Community Conservation Area Zone 1 Plan of Management Plan, adopted by The Minister for Environment on 8/08/2019 which clearly states the significance of Crawney NP as “…part of a regional corridor providing connectivity along the Liverpool Range and is also located within the broader Great Eastern Ranges Initiative conservation corridor” (P2, 1.2). It could not be clearer that the ridgeline corridors of this area in question play a crucial role in protecting the natural habitat and its flora and fauna.
Construction of the Project will involve industrialisation and massive excavation and land clearing of 8316 ha of land with the Development Footprint being 513 ha of prominent high value habitat of the Liverpool Range ridge line (being the proposed site for the wind turbines and ancillary buildings). This does not in any way meet the Council’s objective to achieve document point c (i) - “separating incompatible uses” of land zones. It is incompatible to point (g) of the LEP to use the ridgeline of the Liverpool Ranges, a corridor of natural habitat for 13 threatened animal species, as a man-made industrial site. We note that the Upper Hunter Shire Council has already supported an approved wind farm, “Liverpool Range Wind Farm”, between Coolah and Cassilis with 267 turbines. The terrain selected is completely different to the prominent ridgeline of the Liverpool Ranges. The turbines in the approved Liverpool Range Wind Farm are located on the spurs, slopes and hills of truly historically cleared agricultural land. They are not on the ridgeline!
Not only does the Project not achieve the Council’s LEP objectives of conserving, enhancing, protecting ecological communities and threatened species, protecting habitat corridors, protecting and conserving soil stability and natural water flows and water quality, let alone the environmental, scenic and cultural heritage of the Crawney Pass/Liverpool Range – it completely contravenes all of these fundamental objectives. By way of example, regarding the impact to threatened ecological communities and threatened species, the EIS states:

“Thirteen threatened terrestrial fauna species were directly observed within the Development Footprint, including Koala, Greater Glider, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Southern Myolis, Large-eared Pied Bat. Little‐Pied Bat, Eastern False Pipistrelle, Eastern Coastal Free-tailed Bat, Little Bent-wing Bat. Large Bent‐winged Bat, Greater broad-nosed Bat, Eastern Cave Bat and Gley-headed flying-fox. In addition to the threatened fauna species directly observed within the Development Footprint, the detailed habitat assessments identified a high likelihood of occurrence for an additional four fauna species; Booroolong Frog, Border Tick-tailed Gecko, Eastern Pygmy Possum and Squirrel Glider. The field surveys identified two species of raptor most at risk of collision, Nankeen Kestrel and Wedgetailed Eagle”
No commercial project should leave biodiversity worse off, especially not at this point in time and not in this region, given all the devastation our community and our endangered/threatened species have endured over the past few years. And yet the Council and other government agencies appear to have accepted a Project where the EIS itself assesses the risk of impact to certain endangered/threatened habitats and species is “high”. This is a clearly unacceptable risk which must not be permitted to eventuate.

Additionally, The Project spectacularly breeches the UHSC “Wind Farm Provisions from the Upper Hunter Development Control Plan 2015”  - the Design Guidelines under the section on cumulative impact directs “Ridgelines dominated with wind turbines will not be favored”
This is probably the most significant breech of any of any of the guidelines. The proposed location for this Wind Farm is on the Ridgeline of the Great Dividing Range between Crawney and the Ben Halls Gap conservation areas.  From the top of the Isis River Valley, at 500 Metres elevation above Sea Level, the land rises to 1400M over about 3km.The gradient is extremely steep. Whilst the Project is referred to as the "Hills" of Gold Wind Farm, the location, from the Hunter perspective, is actually atop a Mountain Range, containing the Crawney (1446M) and Wombramurra (1418M) Mountains.  

            Each Turbine is 230M tall. These will most likely be the tallest Wind Farm Turbines in Australia. In itself that is not the issue, the problem is that the Tallest Turbines in Australia are going to be installed on the Top of one of the Highest Mountain Ranges in the Hunter Valley. 

For instance, Wind Farm 34, one of the 70 proposed Turbines, is situated, on the mountain range, at 1405 M elevation. Adding the Tower (150M) and the Blades (80M), the top of this Turbine will be 1635M above sea level. This will be the highest structure (man made or natural) in the entire Hunter Valley (Brumlo Tops is 1586M) and possibly Australia. It will then be closely followed by a further 69 Turbines. Of interest the tallest man made structure in the world is only 828M.

                As mentioned, the Wind Turbines are 230M Tall. For comparison, there are only 5 buildings in Sydney CBD greater in height than each Turbine. The Crown Tower (271M), Chifley Tower (244M), Citigroup Centre (243M), Deutsche Bank (240M) and Greenland Centre (237M) are higher.  These buildings are largely at Sea Level. In NSW the Mt Piper (Elevation 946M) and Bayswater (Elevation 210M) Power station Chimneys are 250M and so higher.  Essentially, these Turbines will be the 8th Tallest structures in NSW. Well, technically, they will be the 8th through to the 78th Tallest structures in NSW, given there are 70 of these Turbines.

                This will, if it is allowed to proceed, almost certainly be the highest and most visible Wind Farm in Australia. By my calculations, Turbine 34 will be visible for 144.4 Km (or approx 145km - if I include the height of the average person observing the object). In other words, that particular Turbine, and most likely many other Turbines in the Farm, will be visible from Singleton, Scone, Muswellbrook, Murrurundi, Tamworth and Armidale. Turbine 34 will be visible from the outskirts of Newcastle.

This makes a mockery of the NSW and indeed Council’s own Planning guidelines to reduce the visual impact of these Wind Farms. Atop an otherwise pristine Mountain Range is not the right place to build a Wind Farm.
The EIS document is misleading and disingenuous when, a number of times, it purports to not be sure whether night lighting on the turbines will be necessary. The Proponent is well aware that CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) has required night lighting on turbines in every Wind Farm in NSW that exceeds 150m in tip height. The Project’s turbines will be 230 m tip height atop our ridgelines. Timor community will certainly be affected, but night lighting will have potentially dire impacts to the microbats and birds, and the other threatened animal species.
            Lastly, It would appear that WF 31,32 and 33, which are in the UHSC area, are not compliant with UHSC DCP section 8c Wind energy systems. (See attached map). Which states:
Section E:  Design guidelines state 2 x turbine height clearance for non - associated property boundary. Given 2 x blade height = 460 meters off the boundary of Ben Halls Gap Nature Reserve puts turbine numbers WP 31,32 and 33 in breach of this guideline.  
There are a number of other Turbines (WP 38,39,40,41,42,43,44 and 45) 
that also breach this condition, a widely accepted guideline for councils in NSW, however they fall in the Tamworth jurisdiction. 

This Project should be rejected for failure to comply with Upper Hunter Shire Council’s Development Control Plans.

Firstly I am against this development because of the lack of consultation to start with. This affects mostly everybody in town in some form and it was keep hidden. Was told by wind farm ambassadors has been in the planning for over ten to twelve years. First I heard about it was a year ago. Brought in Nundle as I have been visiting for over 30 years. Always just loved the lifestyle here. I would not have brought here knowing of a wind farm development. I personally thought that the company stealing the "hills of gold" brand in very poor taste and unethical and is offensive to the locals who live there and are making a town divided even more so. Also the ambassadors of the development have been lacking if providing real directions of turbine placements. Maps photocopied down and dark copied to being unable to see anything. Promised photo montages never received. The wind farm is on top of a gully and this will amplify the noise even more. A noise very audible to native animals. A wind farm in a flight path area is dangerous and is a disaster waiting to happen. What of the snow that generally falls in that area. It feeds our creeks. The native animals would be affected from night lights as it is not natural for the nocturnal animals. Nundle may be only a small town to a foreign company, but there is no housing available to fit these new workers or a small town school's incapable of fitting in more students at present. There are no doctor's that practice in the town nor public transport. If Australia has meet it targets for green energy why is a wind farm in sensitive and heritage sites, with a heavy flawed transport route, being pushed. The push shouldn't be to produce and waste more electricity but have it used wisely and conservatively.

I am objecting to this project as our small quiet town full of local children playing in the park or at the pool freely, will become unsafe. Heavy vehicles will display a danger for our children and elderly residents trying to cross the roads. Also the environmental impact within our community trees removed etc will change the whole feel of our beautiful small town of which attracts a lot of tourists through the year. The reason why we all live here and why the tourists visit is because it is a small quiet town with a lot of history. This will be a major inpact to our tiny little town and we wish it not to happen.

Hello, I am objecting to this project. My name is Ebony Somerville and I am 18 years of age. I have Down Syndrome. I live in the small township of Nundle. I work. I like going to the pool. I am very worried about the future access of the heavy vehicles that will be travelling through our town if this project goes ahead. I do walk around town by myself and to work and to the swimming pool but i wont feel confident in crossing the roads if they are going to be as busy as they say they will. I have just become confident in being independent in finding my place in town but I feel that if this project goes ahead i may not be able to be as independent as I have become. Please don't let this project go ahead, if not for me for all of the children in our town.

1) The carbon required to produce these machines is not recovered over the lifespan of their operation, thereby damaging the environment.
2) Wind farm technology will become obsolete due to advancement in Nuclear energy during the lifespan of the project.
3) There is no guarantee of decommissioning and restoring the sites at the completion of the project.
4) In addition to the damage to the environment that will occur at the installation sites, access roads, power lines will add further environmental damage, this will have a direct effect on the township of Nundle, due to such things as construction noise, increased heavy traffic.
5) Due to the steepness of the country and landbase, adequate geographic surveying has not been undertaken and or results fabricated to push the development through.
6) The township of Nundle does not have adequate infrastructure to support installation crews, including limited water, sewage, and limited accommodation.
7) The negative effect of these machines on human health is vague, specifically low frequency noise, light flicker, light pollution. Thereby putting the Nundle population at health risk
8) The major landholder who has the most to gain financially is scamming the town as he has already purchased another house at Muswellbrook where where he runs an earth moving business servicing open cut coal mining. Hence the information provided to the community has been inaccurate as the primary objective is to convince the community to accept the proposal, cash in the profit, then leave the district.
9) Financial compensation has only been offered to immediate neighbours of the proposed site, ignoring the wider community who will also be negatively impacted.
10) The long term financial impact to Nundles tourism industry has not been considered, as Nundle's primary attraction is it ascetic appeal.
11) The long term negative effect on livestock and farm land property prices has not been evaluated or compensation proposed.
12) This area form the the catchment of Chaffey dam which services some 50k+ people in Tamworth, adequate impact to this critical water supply has not been considered.
13) Once decommissioned the turbine blades are currently buried further damaging the environment.
14) The long term benefit of local job creation does nit exist as these machine are remotely managed.

The proposed wind farm sits atop a valley in which the turbines may produce significant audible noise to both residents and native fauna that will travel down the valley. It is common for machinery and other noise sources at the top of the valley to be funneled and heard much further down the valley. Meeting acoustic guidelines and requirements does not preclude the presence of audible noise, and as this proposal is potentially a perpetual source of noise, I believe the wind turbines will create noise disturbance and annoyance to residents, particularly at night where ambient noise is low.

I OBJECT to the Windfarm proposal.

My reasons are attached.

I am in support of this project as it presents long term benefit not only to the local area but the state and nation. With an insignificant ecological footprint and opportunity to provide energy this project should be approved ahead of other environmetally damaging energy sources. Technology in the area of renewable energy continues to advance in its efficiency as much as anything else and before the end of its suggested lifespan could produce output and storage beyond its initial projected capacities. Thus serving as an example of early adoption and adaptation to energy demands. This project offers some opportunity for medium term energy security for the region with minimal environmental impact compared to conventional energy generation. For this reason alone I think it should be approved. Renewables are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuel energy generation

Making this submission on behalf of my son, Jack Grieve, whose family live in Timor and will be directly impacted by the wind farm.
Please withdraw this wind farm.
My family and their local communities will not survive without better water access than they have had the last few years. The land will dry out and will be uninhabitable.
Please don’t risk sharing our precious water resources in the area by giving water access rights to this Project that will take water on an industrial scale. Please don’t risk the local human lives and threatened fauna and flora.
Please don’t destroy precious habitat home to threatened and endangered (even critically endangered) species. I want them to be around when I am older, I don’t want to just read about extinct koalas and boorooloong frogs.
Please take care of this very special area, including the magical local cave systems that are so unique and rare.
Please think of me and future generations and don’t destroy any chance we have of continuing to live in the Timor community. Please don’t jeopardise our future for the sake of making profits on a Project where the risks to the community and local environment so heavily outweigh the benefits.
Thank you
Jack.

Please find attached my OBJECTION PDF which outlines the details of my submission.

Making this submission on behalf of my daughter, Harriet, whose grandparents live in Timor in direct line of sight to the community.
Please stop this Project.
It will deprive the local communities and landowners like my grandparents of water which they so desperately need themselves.
It will destroy threatened and endangered species like koalas, boorrollong frog, quolls, wedge tail eagles and others, and do irreversible and irreparable harm to the environment.
It will be enormous and pose health and safety risks to my family and me and many others, which has not yet been properly assessed.
The profits council and a handful of landowners may make from this project does not justify the enormous cost this will come at for the rest of the community and the environment.
Please do what is right and stop it so I can have a farm to visit in the future.
Thank you

I object to the Hills of Gold Wind Farm proposal.

It is inexcusable to destroy the ammenity of the local community for a project which it can be demonstrated based on the Goulburn region windfarm failure to deliver no tangible benefit for the ruin it delivers.

Wind farms in general, unless they built at Latitudes 40 degrees north or south of the equator CANNOT return sufficient power to the grid in their lifetime to justify the ruin to the local economy and environment.

Renewable power must be both renewable AND deliver credible power outcomes to the grid. Wind turbines cost the environment in many ways mining and manufacturing the turbines - that is NOT green. When these turbines end their useful life they are being buried in the ground - also NOT green.

Do not allow this to proceed in this or any area north of Tasmania.

Thank you

Every evening, I go for a walk around the farm I live at in Nundle, NSW. It is one of my favourite times of the day where I can relax and observe the beautiful land we have and the hills which surround us.

My family and I moved here ten years ago from Sydney. Living in this small town has impacted the person who I have become immensely. It has made me appreciate nature and acknowledge how important it is to have places like Nundle preserved for our future generations. As a young person today, preserving the environment and becoming ecologically sustainable is very important to me.

I do not think the wind farm proposal for Nundle will benefit the environment. Nundle is not a suitable place for a wind farm, the proposed wind farm development will severely impact our local wildlife which was already majorly affected in the bushfires last year. I do not think a proposal is ‘green’ when it is leading to large deforestation and putting many native and local animals in danger.

When I am in Nundle, I experience a sense of peace from the tranquil and unique natural environment. The hills each evening turn gold as the sun sets, I have never seen this happen anywhere else.

I love spending time here and going up to hanging rock with friends to walk around the forests. My friends who visit from the city say that they love to visit Nundle for it’s beautiful environment and to experience the peace and quiet of country life.

I am scared because most of the time, people only realise that what they have done is bad when it is too late. I am scared this will happen with the old growth forests in the proposed wind farm development area. Once the land is cleared it will be impossible to re-establish such a rich and biodiverse area again.

Majority of the residents in Nundle and Hanging Rock object to the Wind Farm proposal and to quote the Lorax, we ‘speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.’ Please do not let them chop down our native trees and forest. Please help to conserve our beautiful hills of gold because ‘unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.’ – The Once-ler

Melissa Ware
PO box 5355
North Geelong, Vic 3215

28.1.21
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
RE: HILLS OF GOLD WF APPLICATION NO. SSD 9679
Attached is my submission of objection to the Hills of Gold WF proposal ID no, SSD 9679.
My details may be public.
I have made no political donations in the past 2 years.
Sincerely,
M. Ware.

I object to the Hills of Gold Windfarm development for the following reasons:

The Nundle area is a historic and iconic area of Australia with a rich history. This is a beautiful part of rural NSW with rolling hills, ridge lines and native flora and fauna. The area has a number of endangered species including the regent honeyeater, koalas and woodland and grasslands areas. This habitat and ecological communities are threatened by this development. Wedge tailed eagles also live in the area and I believe that wind towers in excess of 200m with a blade span of 100m plus will certainly be detrimental to our Australian eagle. We have lost so much habitat and creatures in the last year that any threat to what is left is completely unacceptable. This development is a threat.

I also believe that the wellbeing and the rights of local people who have selected this area to live have been ignored by local and federal governments. The majority of those affected have been very clear that they do not want this wind development. The potential health impacts are not properly understood.
The National Wind Farm Commissioner has found that locating wind turbines on the top of hills or ridges, while optimum for capturing the wind resource, can have greater impacts on visual amenity, may lead to specific noise and shadow flicker scenarios for residents in the valley beneath and may have other dislocation impacts on the community. Access roads for hill and ridge wind farms can also be obtrusive and significantly damage and constrain the remaining available farming land in the area. Yet here we are opposing a project that will be located on the tops of some of the most scenic hills in NSW.

I also believe that windfarms are turning pristine rural areas into ugly industrial power providers under the guise of being a windfarm with no regard to the loss of neighbouring rural property values. How is it remotely fair when a property owner can turn his rural property into an industrial power station and not be required to compensate or acquire neighbouring properties? There is no requirement for the wind industry to acquire affected, non-involved properties. The mining industry has mandatory acquisition but if this was applied to the wind industry it would be untenable. The good thing is that it may force these developments away from existing communities and people.

I also question the integrity of the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment and the approvals process. This project has been sold to Engie. It is a done deal and I feel that I must object but I don't believe that any amount of objections will have any effect. Regardless, the DPIE will approve this project and that is wrong.

The Hills of Gold Wind Farm is a project that is unacceptable on any level. You only need to look at the extent of potential issues that are raised in the EIS to know that even if they try to mitigate all of them (which they won’t) enough will be overlooked or not adequately addressed to have a huge negative impact on the landscape, the people and the plants and animals that live there. It is not fair and it is simply wrong. And the worse thing is – it will not do anything to save the planet. It is a trade-off from one evil to another.

The reason why I object towards wind turbines is stated below
Wind turbines can cost a lot of damage to natural land, it can cause harm to people or even death. Birds die from wind turbines as they fly into them. Noise pollution can Cause health problems for people and animals, both on land. Loud noises can cause hearing loss and high blood pressure. The Noise wind turbines give off are rated 105 dba which is the same as a petrol lawn mower, this sound will be constand, during the daytime and night time which will cause anxiety, sleep deprivation, physical stress, and disperse the mist.

I OBJECT to the Proposal of the Wind Farm in Hanging Rock.

Its inappropriate for the area, if the proponent claims that he is trying save the environment, by destroying it, he is going the wrong way about it. As for installing these monstrosities on these majestic hills, claiming he is doing it out of love for the local community, yet when asked in a public forum what his financial gain will be, he was not very upfront about it and became rather defensive, claiming all this hardwork and sacrifice was for the good of the local community, not him and his relatives. It is only a matter of money that entices him, not the benefit of anyone else.

4 tonnes of copper will be used for each turbine installed, how much of a carbon footprint will this create just to build one of these turbines? How many years will it take for it to offset its carbon footprint for its construction? The detrimental effects on its neighbours, their mental and physical health, from the light flicker, the aviation lights, the altering of the atmosphere as well as the heating of the ground itself, which will have a negative effect on the unique environment, the constant noise from the diesel engine which is equivalent to the sound of a lawn more or even a subway train. Let us not forget the potential poisoning of our catchment area and the increased possibilities of Bushfires from the wind turbines themselves from when they breakdown and catch fire.

Tourists come from far and wide to marvel at the natural beauty that Hanging Rock provides, the peace and quiet, plus the serenity it provides is the draw card for Hanging Rock and the surrounds. Over time people will stop coming as they have not travelled so far to stare at a bunch of spinning blades.