Name Withheld
Object
Name Withheld
Object
Jasmin Jones
Object
Jasmin Jones
Object
YASS
,
New South Wales
Message
For the attention of the Planning Secretary Ms Kiersten Fishburn & assessing officers for the modification 2 ‘Coppabella’ Decentralised BESS formally known as Yass Valley Wind Farm - 75 turbines with the proposal to add banks of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) & associated infrastructure
11th December , 2025
Dear Ms Fishburn,
Please consider this proposal for what it is. A desperate and risky reach to make an unviable project claw cash for its investors to the detriment of our community. It poses a direct threat to our ability to protect our lives and homes from serious bushfire. It is a Sydney Harbour bridge length too far to describe banks and banks of shipping container size industrial batteries perched on ridge tops and within full view of clusters of farm houses as a ‘mere modification’. It’s an entirely different proposition! I implore you to confidently refuse it on this basis so that good planning outcomes and a fair go for rural residents is upheld.
This ‘modification’ is a serious deviation from the original proposal that significantly changes the impact and risks to the local residents of Bookham and Binalong and wider community of Yass Valley and Hilltops from the proposed industrialisation of notoriously bushfire prone land to now include hazardous battery storage.
The memory of speed and fury of The Cobbler Road Fire of 2013 that razed 14,000 hectares, travelling 35 kilometres in just six hours. The blaze devastated the farming and natural landscape, killing 15,000 head of sheep and horses and severely impacting the well being of our farmers - the most resilient people on the planet - but this was a shocker for everyone it touched - bringing volunteers such as BlazeAid to our community. As one of my first duties as a local government councillor, I found myself serving dinner to farmers and volunteer fence builders in the Bookham hall with my kids wide eyed at the sweat and ash smeared faces. It is forever burned into our community’s collective memory. This proposal would add significant risk of batteries capable of burning for days in thermal runaway into the nearby landscape, and could add toxins into prime agricultural land and Ngunnawal country.
This is what I want you to think of as you contemplate the developer’s so called minor ‘modification’. We were damn lucky in 2013 that no human life was lost and fixed wing aircraft were able to be push back the threat, but add banks of highly flammable batteries on top of hundreds of turbines into the landscape and what will be our chances then?
The amenity of our region for our rural residents is important too and our iconic vistas as a Destination experience promoted by NSW Tourism from our paddock to plate experiences and on farm stays, cool climate wine region of excellence - and idyllic hills the stuff of Banjo Patterson poems with this region his childhood home - these economies all rely on the amenity of the region as a whole.
While I am the Mayor of Yass Valley and an organisational objection will be lodged separately, I make this submission as a very concerned individual, a wife and mother whose children, family, neighbours, friends and community will be in the direct path of any fire sparked by, or spurred on by, the addition of banks of shopping container size batteries /electricity generating works capable of thermal runaway.
This fresh application isn’t a tweak of layout or an extra granny flat on a block to look after Grandma - it’s a well-heeled developer poised to make millions, and a wildly riskier proposition for residents of both Yass Valley and Hilltops areas and therefore the ACT if a worst case scenario fire took hold and fire fighting efforts were hindered by batteries burning out of control and clusters of 260m tall turbines shrouded in smoke scuttled fixed wing support.
But please don’t just take my word for it. Instead, listen to the decades of lived experience from local firefighters, zone commanders and aviators who have identified this very risk. Please find attached their independent review of the risk to bushfire mitigation on a Fire Behaviour Index (FBI) day 40 or above.
Yass Valley Council has appealed to the Premier, the Minister and the Prime Minister requesting an immediate halt to further Wind Turbine and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) developments in Yass Valley due to the emerging cumulative risk they pose to bushfire mitigation.
On September 25th, the Yass Valley Council resolved to bring to Minister Scully, the Premier’s and the Emergency Services Minister’s attention an independent report that warns of the cumulative impact of proposed State Significant Development Projects, associated infrastructure, and HumeLink transmission lines. This report highlights the severe impact these projects could have on aerial and ground firefighting efforts during high Fire Behaviour Index days (40 or above) or Total Fire Bans in our bushfire prone area.
The attached report, authored by NSW RFS Yass Group Captain Michael Gray (ret), is grounded in the lived experience of four decades of fire fighting in our region including the speed and fury of The Cobbler Road Fire - Bookham 2013, and the Canberra Fires. Report contributors include:
Mr Adrian Carey AFSM – Retired Southern Tablelands Zone Manager - 60 years of experience,
Mr Ian Kennerley – Retired Southern Tablelands Operations Officer - Highly experienced
in aviation with 40+ years service.
Current Fire Bomber Pilot flying AT 802 aircraft based out of NSW and first responder to fires.
The peer review was conducted by Mr Peter Alley, Southern Tablelands Zone Manager Yass, Goulburn Crookwell (ret. 2025) with 35 years of experience.
Yass Valley has already contributed significantly to the renewables rollout, with six State Significant Turbine and Solar projects constructed or approved. The Yass Valley Development Control Plan and Renewable Energy Development Policy expresses our community’s position that our region has reached capacity for turbine projects to now adequately protect amenity and population growth, existing economies such as agriculture/ wine, tourism, space sector (est. 2016) that relies on dark skies and low EMI, our environment including the Ngunnawal totem animal - the Wedge-tail Eagle, and capacity for bushfire mitigation. However, the NSW State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) can override this and could result in 700+ 265M tall turbines and associated infrastructure from all projects including Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) from those in scoping status proposing unprecedented cluster formations. Please see attached map.
Given the serious risks to life, Yass Valley Council calls for an immediate halt to further renewables development in our region. This will allow for the critical protection during bushfires of our citizens from rural farming families, village and town residents to our ACT neighbours.
I respectfully ask that you heed the attached report’s warning and act decisively for our community's safety.
Please keep the fate of all souls in Yass Valley off your conscious by refusing this modification that would place batteries in a high bushfire prone region to the detriment of the protection, safety and well being of all residents.
With respectful regard,
Jasmin Jones
11th December , 2025
Dear Ms Fishburn,
Please consider this proposal for what it is. A desperate and risky reach to make an unviable project claw cash for its investors to the detriment of our community. It poses a direct threat to our ability to protect our lives and homes from serious bushfire. It is a Sydney Harbour bridge length too far to describe banks and banks of shipping container size industrial batteries perched on ridge tops and within full view of clusters of farm houses as a ‘mere modification’. It’s an entirely different proposition! I implore you to confidently refuse it on this basis so that good planning outcomes and a fair go for rural residents is upheld.
This ‘modification’ is a serious deviation from the original proposal that significantly changes the impact and risks to the local residents of Bookham and Binalong and wider community of Yass Valley and Hilltops from the proposed industrialisation of notoriously bushfire prone land to now include hazardous battery storage.
The memory of speed and fury of The Cobbler Road Fire of 2013 that razed 14,000 hectares, travelling 35 kilometres in just six hours. The blaze devastated the farming and natural landscape, killing 15,000 head of sheep and horses and severely impacting the well being of our farmers - the most resilient people on the planet - but this was a shocker for everyone it touched - bringing volunteers such as BlazeAid to our community. As one of my first duties as a local government councillor, I found myself serving dinner to farmers and volunteer fence builders in the Bookham hall with my kids wide eyed at the sweat and ash smeared faces. It is forever burned into our community’s collective memory. This proposal would add significant risk of batteries capable of burning for days in thermal runaway into the nearby landscape, and could add toxins into prime agricultural land and Ngunnawal country.
This is what I want you to think of as you contemplate the developer’s so called minor ‘modification’. We were damn lucky in 2013 that no human life was lost and fixed wing aircraft were able to be push back the threat, but add banks of highly flammable batteries on top of hundreds of turbines into the landscape and what will be our chances then?
The amenity of our region for our rural residents is important too and our iconic vistas as a Destination experience promoted by NSW Tourism from our paddock to plate experiences and on farm stays, cool climate wine region of excellence - and idyllic hills the stuff of Banjo Patterson poems with this region his childhood home - these economies all rely on the amenity of the region as a whole.
While I am the Mayor of Yass Valley and an organisational objection will be lodged separately, I make this submission as a very concerned individual, a wife and mother whose children, family, neighbours, friends and community will be in the direct path of any fire sparked by, or spurred on by, the addition of banks of shopping container size batteries /electricity generating works capable of thermal runaway.
This fresh application isn’t a tweak of layout or an extra granny flat on a block to look after Grandma - it’s a well-heeled developer poised to make millions, and a wildly riskier proposition for residents of both Yass Valley and Hilltops areas and therefore the ACT if a worst case scenario fire took hold and fire fighting efforts were hindered by batteries burning out of control and clusters of 260m tall turbines shrouded in smoke scuttled fixed wing support.
But please don’t just take my word for it. Instead, listen to the decades of lived experience from local firefighters, zone commanders and aviators who have identified this very risk. Please find attached their independent review of the risk to bushfire mitigation on a Fire Behaviour Index (FBI) day 40 or above.
Yass Valley Council has appealed to the Premier, the Minister and the Prime Minister requesting an immediate halt to further Wind Turbine and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) developments in Yass Valley due to the emerging cumulative risk they pose to bushfire mitigation.
On September 25th, the Yass Valley Council resolved to bring to Minister Scully, the Premier’s and the Emergency Services Minister’s attention an independent report that warns of the cumulative impact of proposed State Significant Development Projects, associated infrastructure, and HumeLink transmission lines. This report highlights the severe impact these projects could have on aerial and ground firefighting efforts during high Fire Behaviour Index days (40 or above) or Total Fire Bans in our bushfire prone area.
The attached report, authored by NSW RFS Yass Group Captain Michael Gray (ret), is grounded in the lived experience of four decades of fire fighting in our region including the speed and fury of The Cobbler Road Fire - Bookham 2013, and the Canberra Fires. Report contributors include:
Mr Adrian Carey AFSM – Retired Southern Tablelands Zone Manager - 60 years of experience,
Mr Ian Kennerley – Retired Southern Tablelands Operations Officer - Highly experienced
in aviation with 40+ years service.
Current Fire Bomber Pilot flying AT 802 aircraft based out of NSW and first responder to fires.
The peer review was conducted by Mr Peter Alley, Southern Tablelands Zone Manager Yass, Goulburn Crookwell (ret. 2025) with 35 years of experience.
Yass Valley has already contributed significantly to the renewables rollout, with six State Significant Turbine and Solar projects constructed or approved. The Yass Valley Development Control Plan and Renewable Energy Development Policy expresses our community’s position that our region has reached capacity for turbine projects to now adequately protect amenity and population growth, existing economies such as agriculture/ wine, tourism, space sector (est. 2016) that relies on dark skies and low EMI, our environment including the Ngunnawal totem animal - the Wedge-tail Eagle, and capacity for bushfire mitigation. However, the NSW State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) can override this and could result in 700+ 265M tall turbines and associated infrastructure from all projects including Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) from those in scoping status proposing unprecedented cluster formations. Please see attached map.
Given the serious risks to life, Yass Valley Council calls for an immediate halt to further renewables development in our region. This will allow for the critical protection during bushfires of our citizens from rural farming families, village and town residents to our ACT neighbours.
I respectfully ask that you heed the attached report’s warning and act decisively for our community's safety.
Please keep the fate of all souls in Yass Valley off your conscious by refusing this modification that would place batteries in a high bushfire prone region to the detriment of the protection, safety and well being of all residents.
With respectful regard,
Jasmin Jones