The transition to renewable energy is well underway. Projects such as this need to proceed to ensure the transition is timely and cost efficient.
The affected land holders will be generously compensated for their inconvenience and their fears regarding the land use will prove to be unfounded.
We as a nation have a chance to build and enjoy cheap clean electricity, the misinformation spread by fossil fuel companies is main reason people disagree with these projects. The greater good of our future depends on these projects continuing.

I'm horrified by the EnergyCo plans first and foremost.
I had zero idea that this company had total disregard for so many issues that many of us in the adjacent areas hold dear.
Highlights below...

I object to EnergyCo taking over public state forests and parks such as Watagans, Corrabare and Pokolbin State Forest. This is a shared asset that we can all enjoy, which will now have massive cleared sections. We all own and enjoy this asset, but EnergyCo has now grabbed it for their own use.



Clearing land

This project will impact 761 hectares of native vegetation. This is not acceptable, especially when there is already an existing, cleared corridor a few kilometres to the north (through Neath). There has been no meaningful community input in selecting this path.

The result of clearing this land will be increased crime, rubbish and burnt out cars.

Road widening

In the EIS analysis, the impact of clearing and road widening is not addressed. There are hundreds of planned road works and track upgrades planned, which have an ecological and community impact. These have not been addressed.

Long term analysis missing

There is no analysis of the long term impact of clearing these corridors and additional roads. There is increased fire risk, crime and ecological problems that need to be dealt with long term, but EnergyCo will no longer be responsible for.

Massive impact on biodiversity

This impact on biodiversity on a region already under pressure is unacceptable:

Direct impact to 38 threatened flora

Direct impact to 28 threatened fauna

Other impacts on 4 threatened birds and 4 threatened mammals

Serious and irreversible impacts to 16 hectares, containing 8 threatened flora and 7 threatened fauna species

Missing data

This Impact Statement is based on survey data. But some of the private properties EnergyCo haven’t even visited yet - this is evident by landholder testimony and blank sections in their survey maps. But EnergyCo is treating these blank sections as containing no ecological value.

Ignoring social and community impacts

Several of the impacted properties have been set up as wildlife care sanctuaries. Our communities have invested funds and time in building these up. They are critical for injured animals and supporting an ecosystem already under pressure. EnergyCo has ignored people like Peter & Kathy Morris and this report ignores the impact of destroying these important assets - they don’t even get a mention.

Ignoring the human impact

Our elderly and vulnerable should be treated with respect and care. EnergyCo have treated this as an opportunity to bully, threaten and swindle. Making ridiculous low offers, trespassing and treating them with aggressive disdain. Cases such as Ian & Vicky Barry don’t even get a mention, yet EnergyCo have had the time to use their stories as part of their recruiting process



Meaningless Offsets

To address all this destruction, EnergyCo plan to buy 234,753 offset credits. Essentially they are paying someone else (with our money) so they can destroy our pristine bushland. Study after study have shown these credits to be often very dodgy and don’t offset anything. Just don’t destroy our native bushland in the first place - use the existing corridor to the north

Traffic impact

There will be daily traffic movement of almost 1000 heavy vehicles through small towns like Millfield. 7 days a week. For at least a year, and probably more. This is not something we should have to accept - especially when there is an existing corridor already available.

Workers Villages & Compounds

The creation of these worker villages and compounds will increase traffic and load on community and council resources. This is not acceptable that the developer imposes this on our community and gets this “for free”



No analysis of Fire resilience

There is no analysis of the impact of this project on our fire resilience. Several dams that have been used by helicopters to collect water for firefighting will now be blocked by high voltage transmission lines. The presence of high voltage lines also restricts movement of some firefighting equipment. High winds may result in towers or lines down, which at 500kv may start more fires. EnergyCo isn’t funding any additional fire fighting capacity - it’s up to our communities to support this. This is not acceptable.

Improved vehicle access to bushland means more traffic, and unfortunately more arson during high risk times. Any easement or track access that EnergyCo demands (either on privatr state forest) means they essentially own it - a landholder can no longer erect gates or restrict access to prevent firebugs getting through.

I, Bradley J Traynor, would like to address my concerns over the proposal for transmission line and placement of the Olney switching station due to the unacceptable damage they will have on the Watagan’s population of endangered Littlejohn’s tree frog. While I fully support a transition to renewable energy sources, I would like to see the selection of a more suitable alternative location for the switching station and believe that further consideration should be given to options including underground construction.
For the past eight years the University of Newcastle’s (UoN) Centre for Conservation Science has studied Littlejohn’s tree frog (Litoria littlejohni). This species is already at high risk of extinction (Endangered on the IUCN Red List, Commonwealth EPBC Act, and the NSW BC Act). The University has implemented captive breeding, genetic rescue, and habitat creation in the hopes of saving this rare species, but it is only through continued diligence and action that it has any chance.
Amphibian fungal disease and low effective population sizes (18 to 181 breeding individuals across a few isolated populations) have seen declines in the populations. Fragmentation of populations has brought about reduction in available genetic diversity and sees inbreeding at high rates. These threats alone are likely to reduce the fitness of the populations, without further disruption to their habitat.
The findings of the research carried out by the UoN Centre for Conservation Science indicate that Littlejohn’s tree frogs are known from only three regions: the Woronora Plateau, the Blue Mountains, and the Watagans. Despite the presence of fairly robust forest in the Watagans, the species is restricted to a narrow 5 km (approx.) range which unfortunately lies in the middle of the planned switching station and transmission line location. Genetic studies on the supposed metapopulation in the Watagans have demonstrated very little interaction between populations in the disparate pond clusters, and the threat of complete isolation from one another will further reduce genetic diversity. I believe that the University, along with NPWS and NSW Forestry Commission, have installed (built) numerous additional ponds in the hope of connecting the populations further and to increase viable breeding grounds.
This vulnerable Watagans population is at risk from the Hunter REZ Transmission Project. The positioning of the Olney switching station immediately over the southern end of the population, cuts through habitat at the northern end, and suggests placing transmission towers next to both the natural population and the recently constructed ponds. The entire population would be greatly impacted by these activities, which would destroy important breeding habitats. The Giant Burrowing frog (Heleioporus australiacus), Southern Stuttering frogs (Mixophyes australis), and Red-crowned Toadlets (Pseudophryne australis) are among the other endangered frog species in the region. These species, especially the Giant Burrowing frog, which has a broad terrestrial range, will probably be impacted as well because they share comparable habitat. If the proposed construction increases stream sedimentation, stream frogs in the vicinity could also be at risk.
Although a variety of conservation measures can benefit a species, there is nothing more crucial than preserving the unique habitat of a given species. This is due to the fact that within a species’ habitat there are intrinsic aspects of that habitat that maintains the species’ health and breeding potential.
I strongly urge that the location of the Olney switching station be altered and that the southern portion of this proposed route stay clear of habitat for threatened species. At present, the proposal would see the loss of around one-third of the species' known sites, which would greatly raise their risk of extinction, especially given its poor capacity for dispersal and the hazards (mine, fire, inbreeding, isolation, and illness) facing populations further south.
It seems, from the EIS that the fear of affecting visual amenity ranks higher than threats to biodiversity. I think that in the current enlightened environmental society that biodiversity would rank higher in the minds of most people. I would hope that any future public education or media coverage be open and honest about the effects on the biodiversity in the region, explicitly stating that the southern route will have a detrimental effect on 66 vulnerable species. This fact seems to be non-existent in the current information available to the public forum.
In conclusion, I would again state that I am all for the move toward a greener future in the production of power, but that the transition to renewables should carefully balance impacts upon both human and the natural environment and its biodiversity. I feel that the current proposal seems more focussed on image than ecology, and the projected loss of habitat and biodiversity should be a greater priority. The costs involved in the underground power lines require further investigation to fully assess the viability of this option. I would suggest that underground cables, at least in some parts of the route, would be less impacted by fire, flood, tree-fall, and weather, thus requiring less maintenance, which may offset any costs incurred in construction. This option would remove or reduce the threats to the health of the local environment and its inhabitants.
My real question remains, what is the cost to our country if any of our endemic species are threatened or lost through our actions?
Bradley J Traynor (BAppSc, Grad Dip Ed, MSc [pending])

Word document (8 pages) - attempts to upload have not worked - have therefore copied below but format changes - please advise

Hunter Transmission Project - EIS Review Submission

EIS Review Timeframe – What a farce!
Properties are being acquired, construction road pavement testing is being conducted, new project delivery staff are being recruited, the construction tender process has been started, bidding contractors have people checking the landscape ...... did I miss that the project has already been approved?
Clearly EnergyCo think this is all a fait accompli.
With a strong gut sense of why bother getting involved in the process again, I have bothered to commit some precious time and throw a few challenges to the Department in the expectation this proposal is still getting a serious test before it gets the inevitable ‘green light’.
EnergyCo has spent 3 years in the project development / planning phase for this critical infrastructure project. It helped itself to an additional year to complete the EIS beyond the earlier notified exhibition timing of late 2024. Stakeholders are now afforded 1 month to navigate and digest over 1100 pages of EIS and over 30 supporting technical reports.
Many stakeholders, myself included, actually have busy lives and it is just plain impossible to absorb the content of interest to them and provide solid feedback with such a timeframe. Government organisations with dedicated resources would also struggle to make comprehensive reviews in this time
This EIS review period is frankly farcical, disrespectful and just plain unfair to community stakeholders. My neighbour called it a “snow job" on the part of EnergyCo and I can only but agree – we have been buried under a dumping and finding it hard to dig a way out.
Of course the consequence of this arrangement is that there will be many interested people too daunted to even bother getting involved and for those that muster the motivation, the review and feedback will be more restricted and superficial than could otherwise have been the case.
While 1 month of EIS exhibition may fulfil EP& Act obligations, this is far from being in the spirit of productive community involvement as envisaged by the objectives of the Act. For a large and complex EIS of this nature, the good citizen credentials of the proponent would allow more time for the stakeholders to have a proper say. Shame on EnergyCo....the planning process has been compromised as a result.
Mindful of this, the following comments in this submission are limited to a few matters of particular personal concern:
• Preferred corridor choice has still not been proven as the most suitable alternative in the documentation made public (including the EIS)
• Project justification as presented is inadequate due to failure to address some matters vital to such a question, in particular the economic benefits and costs and the massive biodiversityimpacts. This in addition to the failure to comprehensively demonstrate that the most suitable corridor was adopted
• Some local community impact issues in the Millfield / Mount View area which are substantially understated in the EIS and require further close scrutiny

Personal Situation
The perspective I bring to this submission includes:
• Support for the NSW Government strategy for transformation of the energy system so we can move rapidly to a more sustainable future.
• Support for the concept of the HTP as a vital transmission link between major nodes in the NSW electricity supply network
• Real interest and concern about the quality, robustness and transparency of the planning effort that goes into the development of major linear infrastructure and especially publicly funded proposals such as this HTP
• A rural resident in the Millfield / Mount View Rd area and hence some NIMBY reaction to local issues, most particularly the intended use of Mount View Rd for construction access

Corridor Selection Process
With a long running professional interest in linear corridor planning and assessment, I was motivated to explore the robustness of this crucial phase of HTP development. Living in a potential impact area also heightened my interest. However, I was essentially ‘sidelined' by EnergyCo’s refusal to share its deliberations with transparent access to the documents it prepared to inform its corridor selection decision. In this regard, the timeline is very pertinent .... to be clear I was seeking the information generated up to and used at the time of the preferred corridor selection. The EIS chapter on alternatives was produced long after that crucial project decision was made.
In early 2023 EnergyCo released initial details about the three corridor options being examined for the HTP and announced the Southern corridor as the Preliminary / Preferred corridor in December 2023. My submission of 18 December 2023 (on behalf of ~15 local north Millfield rural residents) focussed on this and requested the detailed corridor options evaluation documents used to inform the decision. Specifically, we asked for details of all options considered, preliminary route maps and concept arrangements (eg. tower locations), assessment criteria and any criteria weightings / priorities, comparative analysis of short-listed options (hopefully in tabulated form), and the decision rationale based on that analysis.
We had reckoned this to be a very legitimate request to EnergyCo given the vital phase reached in the project development process and noting that the public information documents released were very generalised and 'light weight' in terms of technical and quantitative content. Subsequent project updates also did not provide any detailed information. The project Scoping Report subsequently issued to DPIE says a detailed evaluation of the corridor options was conducted, so we assumed the documentation did actually exist. Being a high cost critical infrastructure project, nothing less would be expected! While EnergyCo was not legally bound to address this crucial issue of project alternatives until the EIS release, I repeatedly made the point that EnergyCo had the opportunity to gain a community imprimatur for the project by sharing the evaluation details before the formal project EIA progressed. All to no avail!
On at least 6 occasions over a 7 month period from December 2023 I made the same document request, mainly through the EnergyCo communications team. I was either ignored or “fobbed off" with the typical response being they will follow up and respond. A final attempt to access the requested documents to the EnergyCo CEO in July 2024 actually resulted in a definitive refusal on 29 July 2024 - see extract below of response from the then Project Director:
“Tim, we acknowledge your request to ‘release the comprehensive documentation that proves they got it right’ and hope this summary of the key alternatives that have been considered and rejected proves helpful. At this stage we do not intend to present any further detailed evaluation of the initial corridor selection ahead of the formal project assessment phase”
The “summary of comprehensive documentation” referred to was an assemblage of material from the previous public information releases and was therefore not at all helpful.
It is possible the EnergyCo project team did select the most suitable corridor based on a comprehensive best practice multi-criteria evaluation. However, we still don’t know if this is the case. EnergyCo refused to yield up documentation at the time of the corridor decision and the EIS assessment of alternatives was crafted well after the event and makes no reference to the supposed documentation. This leads me to the conclusion that the supposed documentation does not exist
While EnergyCo represented that it was seeking stakeholder feedback to help shape the project, it remains very obvious that it found my want to interrogate the corridor selection process an unwanted challenge. In my view EnergyCo took no heed of the findings and recommendations arising from the Dyer review regarding early and meaningful community engagement in such projects.
So in summary ..... EnergyCo has not released the documentation that contains detailed, objective, quantitative data that was essential to professionally and adequately evaluate the HTP corridor options during 2023. Consequently the evidence is not available to demonstrate that the southern corridor (which is the foundation of the proposed route) is the most suitable alternative for the HTP. That renders the EIS unreliable and deficient.

Economic Assessment & Project Justification
With the limited EIS review time I have not located any information about project capital cost and conclude it has not been published. Results of a typical project input – output analysis are provided in the economic assessment chapter and this indicates the value proposition expected for the regional and State economies .... although there is no critical commentary or conclusion as to whether those benefits are good, bad or indifferent for the magnitude of capital investment required for the HTP by Sate and Federal governments. Does the investment actually represent a good spend of public money to realise these predicted benefits. The fundamental questions are not addressed.
The EIS is the sole opportunity for community stakeholders to scrutinise the proposal and as an absolute minimum there should be very clear assessment of the project benefits and costs. This is a major and critical public infrastructure spend of national importance – we must know ..... what will it cost us? Is it good value? Is the intended spend better placed into an alternative solution? The questions must be answered satisfactorily as part of the assessment before stakeholders (and the Department as approver) can know if the proposal is justified.
The seeming absence of information about a fundamentally important project assessment criterion is perhaps unsurprising insofa

Dear EISCommittee
I have previosuly made a submission about these new powerlines to the east of the airfield.
I would like to add the following sensible suggestion:

The energy company should approach the farm owners to the east of the strip and enter into some sort of agreement whereby they reserve a portion of their field/s to be maintained for emergency glider landing UNDER THE NEW LINES as required on an emergency basis.
This would involve:
> No Low power lines
> No fences
> No animal feeding infrastructure
> Bush/scrub maintenance
This proposal might work out to be surprisingly affordable, and actually preferable to most members of the gliding club.

trong objection on the basis of the line’s impact on waterways, farmland and fire safety. The overhead transmission line may interfere with drainage, cause erosion, disrupt wetlands. Meanwhile, overhead lines are known ignition sources under extreme conditions. Smoke, winds and high voltage prevent aerial firefighting near these towers, delaying response. The EIS does not demonstrate adequate contingency planning for fire scenarios involving aerial suppression failure. If this project is approved, who will pay for loss of life, property, wildlife or infrastructure resulting from such failure, and will those liable include the proponent or government?

the HTP route threatens waterways running through farmland, affecting both water quality and availability. The visual, environmental and health consequences of overhead 500 kV lines are non‐trivial. Farmland near those easements will suffer due to constrained land use and liability concerns. Overhead lines are more exposed to natural hazards: storms, lightning, heat—leading to fire risk. Aerial firefighting is compromised: safety regulations prevent operation near high voltage lines, leaving ground crews to face worse conditions. If the line is built, what enforceable standards will there be to ensure maintenance and operations minimize fire risk, safeguard waterways, and ensure aerial suppression is never impassable?

The project is not strictly necessary in its proposed form. Why build a brand new double circuit overhead 500 kV line when existing 500 kV lines could be upgraded, or additional capacity added to current corridors, avoiding farmland and waterways entirely? The proposal undermines waterway integrity—creeks and watercourses are at risk of erosion, contamination and destruction of habitat. Fire risk is real: conductor failure or arcing in heat will start fires; aerial fire suppression will be restricted, as safety zones around high voltage lines limit aircraft operations. If this project proceeds, who assumes responsibility for any agricultural losses, ecosystem damage, or fire suppression failure resulting from architectural/design choices?