Hills of Gold Wind Farm

Hi Anthony,
Please find attached BCS's comments on the Hills of Gold EIS. Please note that a submission will be sent separately and directly from NPWS.
Please call if you have any questions.
Regards, Renee.

On behalf of my grandchildren I object to this proposal: 

Wind Farms should be for Australians a source of pride, reflecting our collective consciousness as a Nation. They should demonstrate that we made the necessary changes to our own ways and behaviours, that will help to heal the Earth of the Future. The Earth that our children, grandchildren and all of their descendants will be entirely dependent on. We only have this one “small blue dot”. 

But, sadly, this Wind Farm, will rather become a monument to our unending selfishness and greed. We would rather destroy the habitat of Numerous endangered and threatened species, than having to be inconvenienced ourselves, by locating these renewables sources of Energy, where they belong, in the industrialised footprint, that we have already created. If we keep approving Projects like this one, then One day there will not be any of the original environment left. I am sure though that we will somehow convince ourselves that it was a good idea. 

This Wind Farm, on top of a Mountain Range, given its height at ~1600 Metres, will be visible across much of the North East of NSW. It will, rather than be a source of enduring community pride, be a constant reminder of our own selfishness and greed. In time it will most likely become Australia’s highest man made monument to the many extinct species of plants and Animals, that we wilfully destroyed, to try to somehow ease our own guilty consciences. 

May our descendants, and perhaps the fragile teetering Earth, one day forgive us our Folly.

Please see attached document

On behalf of my grandchildren I object to this proposal:

Wind Farms should be for Australians a source of pride, reflecting our collective consciousness as a Nation. They should demonstrate that we made the necessary changes to our own ways and behaviours, that will help to heal the Earth of the Future. The Earth that our children, grandchildren and all of their descendants will be entirely dependent on. We only have this one “small blue dot”.

But, sadly, this Wind Farm, will rather become a monument to our unending selfishness and greed. We would rather destroy the habitat of Numerous endangered and threatened species, than having to be inconvenienced ourselves, by locating these renewables sources of Energy, where they belong, in the industrialised footprint, that we have already created. If we keep approving Projects like this one, then One day there will not be any of the original environment left. I am sure though that we will somehow convince ourselves that it was a good idea.

This Wind Farm, on top of a Mountain Range, given its height at ~1600 Metres, will be visible across much of the North East of NSW. It will, rather than be a source of enduring community pride, be a constant reminder of our own selfishness and greed. In time it will most likely become Australia’s highest man made monument to the many extinct species of plants and Animals, that we wilfully destroyed, to try to somehow ease our own guilty consciences.

May our decedents, and perhaps the fragile teetering Earth, one day forgive us our Folly.

I lease the kitchen at the Nundle Sport and Rec and I'm hoping to grow my business because at the moment the tax man will say why did she bother. There will be an opportunity to show off my skills and feed people breakfast, dinner and tea and afternoon teas and smoko. The wind farm will bring more business with workers and visitors.

I am a board member and volunteer. The club can support socially the considerable growth in people, sport , feeding and watering and a space to use and lease for there own interests. The club has been run by volunteers and new volunteers are always needed, there will be more people in town that can come over and help.

Please find attached a submission and reference documents provided on behalf of Nundle Business Tourism and Marketing Group Inc.
Megan Trousdale
President
Nundle Business Tourism and Marketing Group Inc

As the owner operator of a small business in Nundle we welcome the establishment of the Hills of Gold Wind Farm. It will bring with it many benefits, not just economic, but also much needed environmental change, our world is feeling the affect of our impact on it, such as the reliance on fossil fuel to generate our energy. We have witnessed the bullying behaviour in our community by a number of those opposed to the project. While difference of opinion is expected on matters such as this, the final outcome will hopefully bring about social healing in the community. Our children will inherit what we create so it is important that we put in place projects such as the windfarm to give them a better environmentally sound world in which to live.
Nundle, Hanging Rock, Crawney and the surrounding area are reliant on tourism to generate income for local business and service providers. The region, particularly Nundle, has a heavy reliance on tourism as a source of income. We see the potential for increased tourism to be generated as a result of the establishment of the Hills of Gold Wind farm. We are definitely big fans!

This objection to the Hills of Gold wind farm is from a team of agents at Imacka Property.

Our agency is headquartered in Uralla and we have a registered sub-branch in Nundle. As rural agents, we sell views for a living and understand the commercial value of a pretty outlook or a million dollar view. We don't know how anybody could argue that the property’s value wouldn't be impacted, if the very asset the property was purchased for is taken away.

Nundle and Hanging Rock areas have an unusually high proportion of lifestyle acreage properties, holiday houses and weekenders. For an area with this size of population and level of services, Hanging Rock and Nundle are quite pricey. The attractiveness of the area is at play here.

If the Hills of Gold wind farm proceeds, we expect a direct financial impact to our operations (lower prices = lower commissions) and to the value of asset base of our clients.

We believe the properties in view of wind turbines will always lag in value behind the equivalent properties not affected.

We would like to see this development rejected to avoid the degradation of a popular area lifestyle area and tourism destination.

see attached letter

As a business owner situated in Hanging Rock, I believe the proposed project will benefit my business by increasing customers visiting the business and through wholesale sales of my products through other local businesses as the project will bring an economic benefit to a broad part of the region.

I support the Hills of Gold Wind Farm
I as the President of The Nundle Sport & recreation Club would like to have my say about the proposal for the benefit of the survival of the Club, knowing that we will have more people in the Nundle and Hanging Rock area that will utilise the club. Our membership is extremely low due to the lack of people in the town and lack of support. We have a wonderful volunteer group that Runs the club, maintains and cleans the club 52 weeks a year. We play bowls 2 days a week and open the Club on a Saturday night for meals and the bar. We the volunteers maintain the bowling green and the grounds around the club.
The Community use this club for various events and it is a very important venue within our small community. We really need the The Hills of Gold Wind Farm to be given approval to help with community funding to keep it open. We do not have money for the maintenance of the building or to replace the mowers or The Green keeping equipment.
Socially this Club offers a venue and a sport for all locals in a town with very limited services and also a place for volunteers to join and be needed.
The amount of jobs and people that will come to this area if the wind farm goes ahead will be a huge benefit for the Club as many of these workers will eat and drink, buy raffle tickets and become members which this club desperately needs.
Regards,
Gail Clinic

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

I submit this response on behalf of the CJ and MC Eagles Partnership, ABN 79984079429.

The partners of CJ and MC Eagles Partnership strongly object to the planning submission.

As background, the family operate and own the ‘Alston’ property since 1996, and more recently ‘Bautzen’ (ex-Nine Mile) Timor Creek, and ‘Glen Dhu’, TImor. Across 3,000 acres, the family operating a beef cattle and general farming enterprise. In December 2016 my wife, Maureen and I relocated from Sydney, to manage and operate the property full time. Through marriage we have links to the original settlers on this Farm. The Original Homestead from “Alston” is now a Museum and tourist attraction in the main street of Murrurundi. We continue the Farming practices and legacy of the original settlers of the area at “Alston”.
We seek to incorporate regenerative Farming Practices into our Farming to restore soil health, which in turn increase carbon capture and will lead to improvements in human health. This project puts our operations at risk.
The development of an industrial site at the watershed of the Isis River and its tributaries has the potential to severely impact our current operations. The EIS Soils and Water Analysis is so superficial, that we are unable to determine whether there will be an impact from this project to the water and aquifers that we rely on. Though common sense says that clear felling the watershed and pouring concrete slabs in place of native vegetation, is likely to severely impact a water course. This is totally unacceptable.
In part our Farming operations relies on Tourism through the area. This locality contains a number of areas that remain largely unspoilt by humans. The top of the escarpment on the Great Dividing Range is one of the most important of these. The unspoilt nature of this valley is its greatest attraction. This Proposal will certainly impact tourism in this area, by destroying the environment that is the valleys greatest attraction.

No matter how important renewable energy is to the Australian population, its development should not be at the expense of the small amount of remnant pristine environment.

Additionally, The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), is biased, misleading and inaccurate. Whilst it is very clear on the Renewable Energy benefits, many of which are overstated, it glosses over the impacts to the Environment and local communities. The widespread community support that it tries to convey is an utter lie, demonstrated by written and online petitions opposing the Wind Farm (all conveniently overlooked in the EIS). The Environmental studies could have been written by a child. This Environment deserved better.

We can always replace Renewable Energy, but we can’t replace the Environment.

This Project should be thrown out.

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 the CJ and MC Eagles Partnership, ABN 79984079429 and myself.

The partners of CJ and MC Eagles Partnership and I object to the planning submission, in summary, for the following reasons:

• Lack of consultation
• inadequate Noise and Vibration assessment of the impacts to our area, and therefore our business
• Failure of the EIS to identify all of our residences and how they are impacted

Lack/Absence of Consultation
The Proponents of the Program failed to engage with the CJ and MC Eagles Partnership till May 2020, two and a half years after consultation commenced on the Nundle side of the range. This gave us insufficient time to gather and seek feedback from the Program on potential impacts to our business by the proposal. It is now clear that in fact this side of the Liverpool Range will actually be most affected.

Worse, The Proponents of the Program, failed to consult at all with the local Timor Community on any potential impacts of the Program to the residents of the community. Timor was completely overlooked in this process.
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 was never consulted in relation to the Project, despite the considerable adverse impacts the Project is likely to have on the 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. The Council appear to have provisionally signed off on the Project, and 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 that 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 important environmental and development/planning laws. This lack of requisite community engagement with key stakeholders to the Project constitutes a fundamental breach of process. Approval of this Project, without proper consultation with key stakeholders, including our community, is improper and would constitute a fundamental breach of process.
We call on the NSW Government to reject the development application for the Project with immediate effect, based on this fundamental breach of process/laws which goes right to the heart of the process.
As an example of the complete lack of analysis of impacts to the Timor area, no noise and vibrations testing was 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. The EIS has failed to address many required assessments, including a decommissioning plan (DEMP) as required for all other wind farm projects in NSW. It is unacceptable that the NSW Government, or the Upper Hunter Shire Council, can support this Project without correct assessment procedures.

The EIS further shows a contumelious disregard by NSW Government and Upper Hunter Shire Council agencies to the high likelihood (the EIS itself calculates this risk as “high”) of irreparable devastation to endangered flora and fauna habitats and species that would be destroyed by construction of the Project, including adverse impacts on threatened and endangered species including the koala, the Booroolong frog (now with an endangered status under both NSW and National Governments) and various species of bats, gliders and quolls and risk of collision of the Nankeen Kestrel and Wedge-tailed Eagle – 13 threatened species identified.

Considering the impacts which recent drought and bushfire events have had on our nation, but in particular our region and communities, it is incredulous that this Project, which so clearly represents a “clearly unacceptable” risk to our community and biodiversity, is even being contemplated by Council and other government departments/agencies at this time.


Noise and Vibration Monitoring
The Impact assessment for this project has been very inadequate. Consequently, we have no understanding of how our business, or our family, will be impacted.

The Timor side of the range was not included in the noise and vibration monitoring, so presumably there was no assessment.

The monitoring is here Appendix E.2 Background Noise Monitoring
https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRestService/mp/01/getContent?AttachRef=SSD-9679%2120201118T023256.378%20GMT

The assessment is here: Appendix E.1 Noise and Vibration Assessment
https://majorprojects.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/prweb/PRRestService/mp/01/getContent?AttachRef=SSD-9679%2120201118T023255.618%20GMT

Looking at the turbine layout, the majority of the turbines are in the Southern portion of the project, which must impact the Timor Community and hence us, and yet all the monitoring stations (circled) are in the North.

Figure 1 image attached (as an attachment) is from the monitoring report.


The EIS is incomplete
The EIS has failed to identify and makes no mention, or provides an assessment of the project impacts, to our residence on our “Glen Dhu” Property, 1475 Timor Crawney Road

The EIS has failed to identify and makes no mention, or provides an assessment of the project impacts, to our residence on the “Glen Dhu” property Woolshed and Shearers Quarters, which are a source of tourism income for the CJ and MC Eagles partnership

Neither of these residences are identified in the EIS.


Conclusion
The Timor Community was completely overlooked during the consultation process for this Project. Whilst Nundle received all the attention, Timor received none, and yet the Timor area is equidistant from the proposed Project area. This is totally unacceptable.

This Project should be rejected.

I am writing as a partner in the heritage inspired garden and kitchenware retail business Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores, 81 Jenkins St, Nundle, NSW, pre-existing the proposal for Hills of Gold Wind Farm.
I consider the proposed Hills of Gold Wind Farm to be a threat to our business, and the continuing prosperity of tourism at Nundle, Hanging Rock and the Tamworth region.
One of the most repeated statements by customers in our store is ,“It’s like stepping back in time”. It is the disruption to the heritage appeal of Nundle and the surrounding landscape that is one of the reasons I oppose the imposition of the proposed 70 wind turbines on the range.
We are fortunate to be custodians of a timber and iron building constructed in the 1890s on the back of the gold rush. It retains the original timber floor, packing case shelving, corrugated iron ceiling, and history jottings written in pencil on a timber partition.
Over 22 years we have developed a business selling traditional house wares and garden tools, inviting customers to connect with growing, cooking and preserving their own fruit and vegetables, just like their grandparents may have done. Other common phrases we hear in the shop include, “It reminds me of my childhood” or “My grandmother had one of those”.
Goods chosen in the store are directly influenced by suitcases and boxes of original historic Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores handwritten journals and typed invoices.
The historic, vernacular, small scale character of many of the commercial and residential buildings in Nundle, contrasted with the dramatic scale of the mountain range east and south of the town creates its romance and appeal.
Our store is included The Shopkeepers international blog post, ‘Shops worth traveling for’ alongside stores in Herefordshire, New York and Preston https://www.theshopkeepers.com/shops-worth-traveling-for/
I first visited Nundle in 1997 as Deputy Editor for Australian Country Style magazine to write about Wombramurra Homestead, regional renewal at Nundle, and Jenkins Street Guest House. The natural amphitheatre of hills at the Head of Peel (now Sylvester Cattle Co) photographed at sunset was a double page spread in Australian Country Style. It was subsequently photographed at sunset for the Nundle Business Tourism and Marketing Group Inc website homepage. On a personal level, it was the location for Duncan’s and my wedding. It is now proposed that 30 wind turbines will be visible at this location to the south east and south west.
I have written about the beauty of the landscape and the sense of place experienced living at Nundle in articles in Australian Country Style and Downtown magazines, and have been featured in articles on regional revival in The Australian Women’s Weekly, Australian House and Garden and was recently interviewed for the attached Galah magazine artlcle ‘Why some towns thrive while others fade away.’ See our media archive here https://www.exchangestores.com.au/pages/media
Introduce something as inappropriate as up to 70 steel towers, rotors and blades, obstacle lighting, clearing, the disruption of additional light, bus and heavy vehicle movements passing through the centre of the town six-and-a half days a week, and you detract from the natural beauty and heritage time capsule of Nundle. No longer can visitors physically and mentally remove themselves from their lives in more developed areas. The industrial economy follows them to their favourite destination. It too has been destroyed by inappropriate, unsympathetic development.
The prospect of 112 vehicles per hour on Jenkins Street (compared to the existing 40 vehicles per hour) and 340 vehicles per hour on Oakenville Street (compared to the current 48 vehicles per hour). These are high pedestrian traffic areas, our busiest streets where we post online parcels and collect mail five days a week on Oakenville Street, drive to the pool on Jenkins Street with our children almost daily for Swimming Club training and time trials, park outside the Nundle Friendly Grocer for daily supplies, visit the Community Health Nurse for medical attention, and call into the Nundle Café for fuel. I do not accept the proposal for “No parking zones” on Jenkins and Oakenville Street for movement of oversize overmass vehicles.
Transport and Traffic interruptions will interfere with the movement of visiting tourists towing caravans to the Fossickers Tourist Park on Jenkins Street, and the movement and parking of residents and independent travellers supporting local businesses.
I am disappointed that the Hills of Gold Wind Farm EIS does not provide engineering detail about how overmass and oversize vehicles will overcome the obstacle of the gradient of the range to access northern and southern areas of the project area. The transport assessment states the Devil’s Elbow hairpin bends are unviable and high-risk, while the proposed new private road does not appear to have been analysed for biodiversity impacts, or safety. The heritage impacts alone to Black Snake Gold Mine are unacceptable.
Our building is Locally Heritage Listed. We have several Biennial Tamworth Regional Heritage Awards, most recently for Building Conservation, sympathetically replacing the verandah.
We participate in the annual Heritage Week hosting groups to tell them about the history of the building, what it sold, its place in the community and the family that established it.
Many visitors have a connection to the store, either through a family member who worked at the store, or descendants of the original owners. Our Australia-wide store community, face-to-face and online (10.7K Instagram followers, 4,000 e-journal subscribers, blog readers) is loyal and deeply invested in their experience of the building and Nundle. They are stakeholders. Online customers often make a special trip to visit the shop in person.
It appals me to think about the negative impacts of the proposed wind turbines to Nundle and our business, from the increased construction and commuter traffic to the proposed project site (including past our door on Jenkins Street), the disruption and potential negative word of mouth among visitors, the loss of tourism accommodation as a result of wind farm related bookings, and losing Nundle’s distinctiveness for not having industrial developments of this scale.
Of particular concern is the potential impact on The DAG Sheep Station, which pre-COVID hosted some 30 weddings, plus small conferences and country music concerts each year. For weddings, that’s usually 100 guests, mostly staying in Nundle for a weekend, spending money in the town and our business. If I was a bride I would not want to book a wedding at The DAG with wind turbines in view. The proposal has the potential to wipe out the future wedding bookings our town enjoys. The DAG’s country music guests also support our business. We know a DAG concert has finished by the flow of customers entering our store and spending.
I am also concerned about the potential visual impact to historic Wombramurra Homestead and Koobah Homestead gardens on Crawney Road, which are open to the public either during Heritage Week, for Open Gardens, and private tours by visiting groups.
It is demotivating to think that visitors standing on our timber verandah or leaning on the timber railing will see wind turbines on the range south of Nundle, where now they see tree covered hills.
Similarly, the dramatic approach to town on the Nundle Road will be dominated by the vast scale of the proposal, with 230m towers to blade tip on 24km of a 1200-1400m ridgeline. The proposal would also be visible as residents and visitors move around the area, east to Hanging Rock, and south to Crawney Mountain and Timor, and even as far away as Tamworth. Obstacle lighting extends the visual impact to 24 hours.
For nearly three years we have had a paper petition on our shop counter objecting to the Hills of Gold Wind Farm. The majority of our customers and local residents do not agree with the location of a wind farm on the range south east of Nundle. Our customers want renewables to be sensitively sited, not destroying the environment to save the environment.
When the wind farm was first proposed I couldn’t imagine continuing to run our business in Nundle if it was approved. Now, after looking at commercial real estate in scenic northern NSW hinterland locations, I realise we cannot replace our historic building in another town. It is unique.
The social impact of the introduction of the wind farm proposal has been well documented in the media. Over 22 years we have done our bit to contribute to the community for the benefit of the whole. I have been fortunate to receive an Australia Day Community Award, Tamworth Zonta Woman of the Year (2020) and Certificate of Recognition for Contribution to Nundle Public School Parents and Citizens Association and the Community. I was among five community representatives at a meeting with Wind Energy Partners Pty Ltd consultant John Wilcox (Inclusive Engagement) on February 7th, 2018 and one of the first things he said was “If the community doesn’t want it [the wind farm], it won’t happen.” I sincerely hope the state government is able to stand by Wilcox’s statement.
Wind farm related social division led to the resignation of the three most experienced members on the Nundle Go For Gold Festival Committee in 2019 when Someva Renewables was approached for in-kind support. The proposal has caused tensions between project associated and project non-associated members of the Nundle Business Tourism and Marketing Group Inc and Nundle Public School Parents and Citizens Association.
It has made Nundle a less enjoyable place to live, and consequently a less enjoyable place to run a business. Please reject the proposal and let us begin the process of healing.
Megan Trousdale
Partner
Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores

To Whom it may concern.
The issues with visual and audible protests I will leave to those who are most affected by those issues.

My submission and complaints and those of the parties I represent are to do with biosecurity issues. It would be a reasonable statement that historically the construction of roads and power lines are a common method of weed spread. The construction of the project covers a large area, of which much of this area is not easily accessible due to terrain and vegetation. It is also the beneficial nature of the project to be build on the highest points of the area.

In the case of a weed being introduced to the area it is going to be extremely difficult in some areas for landowners to control the issue. As mentioned above the project will be built on elevated terrain which mean seeds can easily be washed down hill to further infest a larger area. As the project is being built on the head waters of the peel river and the Goonoo Goonoo Creek the potential for spread could be devastating to both affected rate paying landholders and to government agencies entrusted with the control of such an issue.

I believe that the project should be made accountable for such an environmental mishap however understand that it is unlikely they can be made accountable for such a large area. It should be possible however, in the event of a biosecurity outbreak that the project should be liable to costs of control and loss of land value to the landholders, not limited to those where the project is directly involved, but those that are adjacent to the project. Being liable for costs on adjacent properties could assist in isolation of the issue and prevention of further spread. I would assume any landowners that signed onto to be a part of the project whether it be turbines or transmission lines would have a biosecurity agreement in place but there is no protection for adjacent properties.

In our situation the transmission lines travel along the neighboring ridge line. If there is a biosecurity issue, it could eventually come to us and we are left with the cost of control and damage to our land which will be here long after wind farm is gone.

Any issues may be a macro issue. For example we are absent of certain weeds that are prevalent in other areas of the Tamworth region. We have biosecurity measures in place which we take very seriously, but this project puts us at greater risk.

In summation, I would like to see some protection of adjacent landholders for biosecurity issues by making this project liable for damages if they occur. Assisting adjacent landholders should assist with the containment of the issue. This may ensure they take more care throughout the life of the project and after if necessary. The problems which this project could leave for biosecurity could outlive the life of the project.

Dear Sir/Madam

I have been a resident of Nundle for 45 years and owner of multiple businesses over the years. My recent business is the Gold Mine Guest House, a business that promotes the historic heritage of the region, in particular through the gold mine museum attached to our guest house.

We have been consulted regularly by the developer of the project for the last few years and have come to understand many aspects of the proposal. We believe the project is important to maintain the towns local economy. Many years ago it was a vibrant town based on the rural economy. We rely now on tourism mostly and believe this project will contribute to new and different tourist coming to visit, as well as improved infrastructure for tourists and residents. The jobs during construction will be a good support but we understand are not forever, as we have experienced times of drought, COVID hardships and the decline in the wool industry.

Warren

Please see attached objection to the Hills of Gold Wind Farm