Paling Yards Wind Farm

Oberon residents do not want this

Dear DPE
This project has a long gestation -it was subject to a Development Application in 2014 - the environment has changed demonstrably environmentally, socially and economically. The proposed equipment has magnified to promote a significantly more intrusive development. It is no longer a suitable development for the area.
In particular my objection is based in the following;
1. Lost of visual amenity -the project can no longer be absorbed in the landscape - it conflicts with the surrounding environment and with the Wind Guidelines 2016 let alone the proposed new Guidelines which undoubtably this Developer seeks to avoid.
2. Noise to surrounding wilderness and neighbouring households
3. Consultation there has been no genuine consultation with the community.
4. There is only socio-economic opportunity out of a construction only job opportunity - the long term FTE are negligible to non existent.
5. The road access is almost non existent - major disruption on impossible approaches
6. The town of Oberon will become a dangerous no- go environment during 2 years of construction.
7. There is no comprehensive decommissioning bond or plan -again its demonstrable of the Developer's Interest in escaping the new Wind Guidelines
8. The developer's bona fide is questionable -they present as flipper of projects not a holder
For all this reasons the project has no social licence
Thankyou - happy to elaborate

I am extremely concerned for the community and the environmental impact of Wind Turbines in the Oberon LGA, at Paling Yards.
Oberon has a biodiversity all of it's own. It boarders the World Heritage Are Blue Mountains, the Jenolan Caves and historical towns of O'Connell and Bathurst. Turbines will be built as close as 1km to the Abercrombie River. There is amazing flora and fauna found no where else in the world. Unfortunately over 400 plant and animal species are on the endangered or critically endangered list. Now our amazing country is to be decimated with the introduction of wind turbines. The building of these turbines and ongoing maintenance will be harmful to our creatures, community, health and environment and at exorbitant costs. I have seen the transport routes Engineers Report and it is greatly disturbing. The enormous dimensions of components and the extensive alterations to the routes - Dubbo, Mudgee, Sydney, Bathurst, O'Connell, Oberon, Paling Yards - will have a huge impact on all roads used. There are up to 11 components to each wind turbine. The trucks reported travel at approximately 10km/hr and each require 14 support vehicles. This equates to an additional 40,000 vehicle movements of an expected 22 month construction time frame. The sheer weight of fully laden trucks will be detrimental on our small, already overloaded, damaged country roads. O'Connell Road is the main road from Bathurst to Oberon. It is used by trucking companies, delivery drivers, stock trucks, farmers, school children/bus, emergency services, workers etc travelling to and from work in Bathurst. The World War 1 Memorial Avenue at O'Connell is planted with 120 Desert Ash Trees representing those men and women who served Australia. These trees will no doubt not matter in shipping these huge turbine components, but they matter greatly to the community of O'Connell. Oberon has a small country hospital regularly transporting patients to Bathurst and Orange Hospitals for X-rays, broken limbs to critical care. If there is an ambulance, police, or fire emergency the road could be cut off having shocking consequences or even a fatality. With the onset of summer and authorities warning of drought Oberon LGA is in a very alarming situation should a bush or forest fire break out. If a fire should take hold in a wind farm who will fight it? I understand that overhead fire fighting would not be used due to the danger of the blades to the aircraft. These fires increase the risk of blades burning and dropping to the ground causing more issues.
The only other route for travel between Oberon and Bathurst is via Jenolan Caves Road and totally unviable. A section of Jenolan Caves Road at Hampton suffered a serious landslide following bush fires and torrential rains in December 2019. This route has since been a single lane, with stop go traffic lights 24 hours a day. The road is extensively damaged and could not take the increased number of vehicles if the local community are forced to use this route instead of O'Connell Road during the shipment of wind turbine components. Not to mention the additional hour or more travel time. School children would be on the bus for hours.
This could be a matter of life or death in an emergency!
Mental health is always a huge concern in small regional areas and this is impacting our community. Farmers are surrounded by forests and feel alone, unable to stand up to large corporations. The land will be contaminated by the trucks and equipment bulldozing hundreds of acres of land to form the roads and concrete platforms, then the building of the turbines. This has been seen first hand at Cadia Wind Farm near Orange. The chemicals leaching from the turbine mechanisms will further contaminate the soils, running into our waterways. These waterways are the drinking water for Sydney and our area. The concrete, carcinogenic substances and chemicals will last forever in the ground. The destruction of so much land and the contamination will affect wildlife, possums, koalas, frogs, fish, wombats, brush turkey, bats, eagles, falcons, butterflies, lizards and snakes. The blades pose a great threat to the death of eagles, bat and butterflies and could result in their extinction. Turbine blades have a reasonably short life - 25 years - and they measure up to 107 metres long and are one single unit. Imagine transporting these! Many of the substances cannot be broken down, leaving more waste and contaminates - fibreglass, polyester, epoxy, carbon fibre, Kevlar - and maintenance cannot possibly cover all irregularities. The transmission lines pose a further threat, as do substations. It is clearly apparent that batteries are an extremely dangerous threat to everyday life. Farmers are the backbone of Australia! We need to remember that they are our food source. We do not want to be eating or feeding our children produce that has been contaminated. What would we eat if our farmers are forced off the land? Our farmers and the farmers of the future are our life source. Please do not destroy our lands with these huge wind turbines. I do not believe the best way forward is to rush into net zero but to take a more conservative approach, not a knee jerk reaction. We must think about our future and the future of our children and children's children.
Big business has an agenda and it does not seem to look at the bigger picture or whom and how these issues affect our lives or livelihood. Big business appears to look only at the bottom line and the bottom line for us is the loss in value of our homes, farms and business, our health, livelihoods, tourism and our community. These enormous monstrosities/wind turbines are not being erected in the backyards of big business owners.
Please do not rush to be inline with other countries in the race to net zero! This helps no one!
Please think it through, look at what has happened in other Australian country areas, the blight on the landscape, the detriment to the environment, and destruction caused. Is this the way forward?
Please help our beautiful country stay that way and help us continue to live better lives.
We have only one planet, let us work together to keep it pristine!
Yours sincerely
Carol Ang

We have nearby property. This is an excellent project, we look forward to its progress.

The entire concept that you can produce the quantity of energy produced by wind and solar to meet our and the worlds energy demands is flawed!

The laws of physics will not allow the renewable concept of wind and solar to be a practical solution and the cost of producing and efficiently using the hydrogen dream is a long way off – Japan has been working on hydrogen production for the last 20 years – storage being one of the biggest problems - hydrogen can even seep through glass and takes massive amounts of energy to produce, not withstanding that currently most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels – Twiggy Forrest laughs all the way to the bank with the current “gift” of one billion dollars!

The energy expended in the creation of renewables is not recoupable in the life of the renewable project

The renewable “hypocrisy” industry currently supports human atrocities in China by the their use of slave labor or next to it and other human rights such as child labor abuses in other countries mining the rare earths required by the renewable industry.

In the event of local or international hostilities, the control systems are easily hacked and/or the installations are very vulnerable to attack and repair is not quick, We are a nation becoming ever more defenseless!

The pollutants created from mining, manufacturing, the life of the project and the final disposal are a far larger problem than nuclear waste. These wastes created by the renewable pollutants such as expired turbines and blades and heavy metals leaching into our food producing water and land invading our food chain.

In short, the renewable industry in its current form is a taxpayer funded worldwide rip off!
A classic of how caring people can be conned by a few! This shows so well the statement of “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” is a law of propaganda, often attributed to the Nazi, Joseph Goebbels

The convenient blind acceptance by the authorities of the presented EIS’s as a “perfect” document, not questioning the validity of the content.

I believe this project is too invasive in terms of number, size and height of wind generators.

The threat to native birds and fauna are scientifically proven to be significant as is the ongoing threat of bushfire causation.

There is also ample scientific comment on the acoustical dangers to nearby residents .

These types of major wind farm projects are not suited to areas with projected relatively rapidly growing populations.

In summary, the community, environmental and residential risks far outweigh the proposed benefits,

For too long Australia has relied on fossil fuels to the detriment of the planet. For the survival of our descendants I implore that this project go ahead. Unless we start NOW we cannot stop the destruction. We may never be able to completely recover, but at least we can no longer continue the detestation.

I object to the creation of this windfarm.

It is well known that wind turbines are damaging to the local flora and fauna and there is potential for the machinery to damage nearby water ways too.

As listed in your report there are many local birds, mammals and reptiles that will be affected and some are endangered. Bats and eagles are particularly vulnerable to wind farms and a quick search on the internet will show the resulting dead animals at the base of them.

The construction will see trees and homes for wildlife disturbed along with potential for displacement of Koalas and more.

Wind turbines are 20% to 40% efficient at converting wind into energy. The typical life span of a wind turbine is 20 years, with routine maintenance required every six months. What happens after their life - typically they are taken down and left to rot on the land they have already destroyed.

With the growth of worldwide knowledge it would be nice to see an energy production farm chosen that is not detrimental to local wildlife and local flora. Rather than the installation of inefficient and dangerous wind turbines.