Mod 1 - Turbine Amendments

Dear Phillipa
Firstly thankyou to Ella and yourself to take time out and visit our property "Krystal Blue".
As we have discussed we do appreciate that nine turbines have been removed by CWP although we have grave concerns with making the other turbines so big. We feel that they will be noisier and make larger shadows and flickering even though the assessments that were provided we find them hard to believe.
We are wondering if the 6 closest turbine cluster to us could be converted to solar power rather than turbines as there would still be electricity being generated but less impact on our property and our son, as we know CWP are looking for landholders interested in installing solar farms in our area.
The other turbines in the new layout we would like to see kept the same size as the first layout ' this would be less intrusive on our visual , noise, shadowing and flickering impact compared to the size looking for approval now.
We feel it is up to CWP to provide appropriate landscaping on the property the turbines are being install on as this should be NOT be our responsibility or cost for us to hide their turbines!
As for the impacts on our son nothing has changed but we feel if the closest cluster was converted to solar and the other turbines either moved right back and kept to the original smaller size turbine it would be less confronting,and we MIGHT have a chance to live on our property together! As we will still need to seek professional intervention for our son for this to happen.
Lastly the Letter of Offer (Neighbour Agreement)
We have been advised to REJECT the Neighbour Agreement for a number of reasons.We found this an insult on more than one level!
In summary we still would like the Sapphire wind farm to move but we think after our discussion we hope our submission will be considered to provide a fair outcome for all parties concerned.
Graham & Maria Burnham

Objecting to the proposed increase in height of the wind turbines

Even thou there has been a reduction in the overall number of turbines in the project the visual impact on our place has been increased to over 85 turbines due to the extra height.

I think this extra visual pollution will have an effect on the value of our place and in future force us to leave our home

If this new submission goes ahead, has the proposed landscaping for our home and cottage been updated due to the extra visual pollution

We also note that there has recently been more funding allocated to the health side effects of wind turbines This seems an ongoing unresolved issue.

If the first submission was not viable with the smaller turbines why was it put forward. Upon approval they suddenly want to change the visual impact of the project

Please in your haste to rubber stamp this project to met
political targets it would be appreciated that our concerns are taken into account and the extra visual pollution this will inflect on the landscape are also considered

Very little consideration has been given to the people who actually live in and around the location of the wind farm. If the people who live in the city would like so called green energy then why don't they put the wind turbines in their back yard and leave mine alone. I will be left with a view of nothing but wind turbines! and to put things into perspective, the proposed height of 200M is 10 times the height of a very large eucalypt tree which makes the suggested thought of screening the wind farm out of view with tree plantations quite stupid! And then there's the noise... being compared to things like traffic carriage ways which are not constant like the wind turbines will be relentlessly in our face and ears forever! Quite a number of people who live in Swan Vale will most probably be left with little to no choice but to own land which is worthless and uninhabitable thanks to this so called great project which is of no benefit to individuals or the community in which it has been imposed.

As owners of "Mindora" a rural enterprise located at 3018 Gwydir Highway, Swan Vale, we wish to register our strong objection to the Sapphire Wind farm in its current form and object to the height changes of the turbines currently submitted
Not enough consideration has been given to the massive increase of significant visual impact on our residence and the overall increased impact to our scenic views of our farm and our other adjoining farm located at Oaklea, Gwydir Highway , Swan Vale.
Towers 117, 115,116,111 are of incredible visual impact to our home, and scenic impact... we have had little communication on how the proponent is going to minimise this impact... other than...... "Not much we can do about it.".!!!!!
Reduced property value is of major concern to our family. Our property will be totally surrounded by both Sapphire wind farms and Goldwind, wind farms. Due to the high visual impact to our residence we would loose significant interest in prospective purchasers to the property. We believe there will be undue loss to the value of our property in comparison to others in the Swan Vale District.
We note that significant financial compensation is affordable by the proponent. We believe compensation should be considered by the proponent for the reduction in property values that will be imposed on our property Mindora, Gwydir Highway, Swan Vale.

I am opposing the latest modification to the increase in turbines to 200m. This far exceeds the original plan and will impact our view and in time our wellbeing. We are located 30kms from Inverell on the northern side of the highway and will have a direct line of sight from our house towards these turbines. Our home and view is north facing.
This company was keen to get the community involved when the original plan was 178 turbines and engaged with us satisfactorily. As the plan has changed with turbines now reduced to 109 and the height increased to 200m there is inequity in the Swan Vale and Kings Plains community and cause for angst within this normally peaceful community. Less landholders are now involved and the company has overlooked the importance of engaging those on the borders of the wind farm, such as my family. We need more information on the exact placement of the turbines and hence the anticipated shadow cast from those turbines. We do not receive any financial benefit from this wind farm however are fully impacted by the placement being directly in our view from our home.

Dear Sir/Madam,
This will be a quick submission as I had no knowledge that there was an application to change the original approval. "Community consultation is an integral part of the planning process"I find this statement by the Department of Planning and Environment a joke. I part own and live on the Property named Tara. At the time of the original application by CWP, I had two direct neighbours with proposed turbines located on their properties. I was surrounded to the North and East. In the six or seven years that CWP has been working to establish a power station on my neighbour's properties, I have not been contacted once by either CWP, the Department of Planning and Environment or the Inverell Shire Council (ISC). CWP dropped off a flyer that I read and responded to on their website on the 1-10-09. I have not had any contact with anyone involved in this development other than that email I sent and the reply I received from CWP in 2009. Whilst dropping off that original flyer, a CWP representative took a photo from my property. They used this without my permission for their original website, showing the natural beauty they were planning on destroying.

The Department has rubber stamped this development approval without anyone checking whether the developer has actually been consulting with the community or neighbouring landowners. Some of my neighbours and I contacted the Inverell Shire Council after we received the CWP flyer in 2009. We wanted a community meeting, so we had the opportunity to voice our concerns to our council. We were all rebuffed, I was told that because some landowners were going to be compensated, the ISC had to be impartial and they did not want a community meeting. ISC subsequently went on to support the development against the wishes of the majority of local ratepayers in the area, without finding out their views on the matter.

Both of my "hosting" neighbours have not spoken with me in the seven years about the wind development. Giving them the benefit of the doubt regarding their morals and character, I can only assume they have been gagged from speaking with me.

I have spoken with a local non hosting resident today about this application and I was shocked to find out that some neighbours had been offered token amounts of compensation by CWP. Because there has been no consultation with me regarding the development or its progress I had no idea this was happening. It isn't up to me to chase up information, I should be kept informed. Wasn't it a requirement to keep the neighbours informed? I like most local residents didn't know about the original application from CWP and we didn't lodge a submission.

A local neighbour informed me today that the Department of Planning and Environment had required CWP to pick its own "local" representatives to liaise with CWP. One of these people is an ISC employee that is in favour of the development and has never consulted with me or anyone else I know. I have no idea who the other so called "local" members of this CWP handpicked group are. They certainly have not been representing the community or keeping us informed on any changes or progress. I find the fact that the Department made CWP choose its own "locals" extremely distasteful and has resulted in extreme anger towards the Department heads and CWP by local residents.

My family has been caring for our property named Tara for 65 years. This power station has destroyed our property value. Our property has unobstructed views for 180 degrees looking east towards the development. This means that it is directly in the line of fire for flicker, and noise and the destruction of our spectacular views of the natural landscape. Being a smaller property the location and lifestyle benefits it currently enjoys means, that once they are gone so is the majority of its value.

The CWP took photos and added towers for the original application from a further two properties (at Danthonia) to the west of Tara, to show how the towers would look once built. Did the Department know that they were not taken from the nearest neighbour being I? It was also stated that the CWP had meetings with the owners of Danthonia and nearby neighbours. I am between the development and Danthonia and as stated previously have never spoken or had a meeting with CWP or any of its contractors or employees.

If the towers are going to be increased in size, the negative effects will also be increased and for a larger distance. If the towers are increased, more should be removed from the western edge of the Swan Vale area. They should only be allowed on flat land so they don't tower over neighbouring properties. A reasonable amount of compensation should be paid to surrounding landowners that WILL suffer from this development. The distance from the towers that this compensation is paid, needs to increase on the current approved DA and increase measurably if the towers size is to increase further.

From what the Department and CWP have written in the past, one can only assume that both organisations believe that farmers spend all day in their homes, never going outside or working on other areas of their properties. I can assure you all that we find it offensive that both entities measure the distance from towers only to landowners' homes and not their property boundaries nearest the towers. This measurement method needs to change because we do actually and will actually work on other areas of our properties closer to the proposed towers. In working in these areas we will also suffer the negative effects from the towers. We will be subjected to them day and night without a break.

The Department needs to take the shattered lives of landowners in our area seriously; most farmers do not earn very much income and rely upon the capital gains in their land for their super. Some families have been caring for their land for their whole lives, only to have all the value they have worked for taken away from them by a swipe of a pen. I believe we deserve more respect than we have received so far. We have been treated like second class citizens by both the Department and CWP. You would swear we lived in China not Australia they way the Department has handled this development so far. You have a chance to right the wrongs committed against myself and my neighbours with this amendment.

I hope the situation will improve for our local community and the Department starts to show some ethical and moral leadership moving forward from this point. The developer has been shown it cannot be trusted to liaise and consult with the community and the Department has done nothing to correct this.

Hi Phillipa,

The EPA has reviewed the proposal and recommends that the following information is provided in regards to noise.

* correct tabulated criteria for each integer wind speed, at either 10m or hub height, for each receiver
* tabulated predicted wind farm noise levels for each integer wind speed, at either 10m or hub height, for each receiver, each assessed wind turbine model and each assessed operating mode.

Regards


Jessica Creed
Senior Regional Operations Officer - Armidale Region
North Branch, NSW Environment Protection Authority
Ph:02 6773 7000 Mb:0409 831 040
[email protected] www.epa.nsw.gov.au @EPA_NSW

Report pollution and environmental incidents 131 555 (NSW only) or +61 2 9995 5555

Phillipa

Council has one concern in that the EIS, and in particular Appendix B5, which makes no reference of any potential impact of the turbine increase on the proposed Aviation Training College at the Glen Innes Airport. This Development application was approved by the Northern JRPP on 12/12/2012 and the application has effectively commenced with a subdivision being completed and initial entrance road and car pork works commenced.

It is suggested this report should be amended so as to reflect any potential impacts on the proposed airport development.

Any queries please do not hesitate to let me know.

Regards
Graham

Graham Price
Director of Development, Planning & Regulatory Services
Department of Development, Planning & Regulatory Services

T (02) 6730 2365
F (02) 6732 3634
M 0418 440 978
[email protected]

GLEN INNES SEVERN COUNCIL
136 Church Street
(PO Box 61)
Glen Innes NSW 2370

Dear Phillipa,
Further to our correspondence of 23rd March, 2016.

I advised that our CASA approved Safety Inspector, Peter Sullivan had been involved in discussions between the relevant CASA Airports people and the proponent.
The conference call was with David Alder of CASA and Peter Sullivan and the proponents representative Mr Mounsey. CASA were briefed for the first time on the development of the airport approved by the NSW JRPP as the proponent and his consultants have never conducted this essential research. Ambidji the authors of the airspace report were not included in the conference call at the election of Mr Mounsey.
In the briefing the following items were introduced:
* Turbines at 665' impinging on safe airspace for helicopters legally able to fly down to 500' and aircraft legally able to fly down to 1,000' and lower to get below cloud.
* No recognition in the draft Ambidji report on behalf of CWB of topography effects
* No recognition in the draft Ambidji report on behalf of CWB related to flying in visual flying rules (VFR) when the cloud base falls below 1,000'
* No recognition in the draft Ambidji report on behalf of CWB related to the dramatic increase in movements to exceed 100,000 per annum from the dramatically expanded airport under the approved DA/EIS.
* No recognition in the draft Ambidji report on behalf of CWB related to unregistered airports on farmers properties in the area surrounding the airport
* No recognition in the draft Ambidji report on behalf of CWB that qualifies the effects of vertical disturbance of the air in the airspace above the turbine blades. Disturbance may have the capacity to create unstable air which may affect the flying characteristics of General aviation aircraft as no science has been provided that this isn't the case. Surely the "Precautionary Principle" in the legislation must apply.

At the end of this conference call CASA representative agreed to disagree with the views on safety of the proponent.

The CASA officers involved in the wind farm assessments are:
Dhilip Matthew Manager Airports
David Alder Officer handling Sapphire Development
Matthew Winderbank Officer Handling White Rock Development

We have suggested to the proponent that he retain Mr Sullivan or a suitably qualified Airport Safety Inspector with a knowledge of the airport and its imminent expansion to make the Ambidji Report fit for purpose which we believe it isn't. The DA/EIS is available from Glen Innes Severn Council and was displayed throughout the process on the Council's website and in hard copy at their offices.
The proponent appears now to not want to follow this course.
It is our view that 200 metre high turbines provide a severe navigational hazard if not clearly lit and even if reduced to the original 150 metres tall still are an unacceptable hazard.

It is clear the proponent in their assessment of duty of care doesn't see as necessary the need to light the wind farm in the same way that CASA and Air Services require TV, radio and phone masts to be lit and have so for decades. There are lit obstacles already in the Glen Innes air space.

Please feel free to contact us for further technical inputs.
GLEN INNES REGIONAL AIRPORT
Neil Hansford
Director
Glen Innes Regional Airport Py Ltd
Emmaville Road
Glen Innes NSW 2370
Phone: 0249191626
Fax: 0240275063
Mobile: 0422868237

I oppose the proposal which will involve massive change to what was originally approved and will have great impact on the community.

The VI assessment submitted in support of the proposal is profoundly defective and the noise assessment fails to take account of factors that cause risk to the health of residents.

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