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Allendale East wind farm opposed

Posted on October 16, 2009, 8:08am and updated on October 19, 2009 at 12:46 pm

Wind farm
An Allendale East dairy farmer says he is not prepared to pull his blinds down to keep flashing lights out at night, nor will he put up with the endless noise of humming wind turbines if the proposed Allendale Wind Farm goes ahead on his doorstep.

Richard Paltridge (pictured) told The Border Watch he strongly objects to the multi-million dollar green power project with 49 turbines, which is currently awaiting approval before construction can start next year.

“I love this area, it’s beautiful and I don’t want the scenery spoiled by high towers when I am going to have 13 turbines within close view,” he said.

“My concerns are the flashing lights on the towers which will keep us awake at night, the noise so close to our homes and the swarms of birds and ducks that are going to be chopped up.

“A farmer friend near Lakes Entrance told me he had a lot of problems with noise and shadow flickering — the turbines were making him sick, gave him headaches and he couldn’t sleep at night.

“I want residents to think very carefully and not just believe everything they are told.”

While wind energy companies are selling wind as the new oil, Mr Paltridge remains suspicious.

“It worries me that laws in Germany require turbines to be at least 2km away from dwellings and in California it is 3km, but in Australia it seems to be only 500 metres,” he said.

He warned the 11 Allendale East landholders who may host the turbines on their land to carefully read conditions in lease agreements with developer Acciona Energy before signing.

“Landholders in other parts of the country have had trouble when they discovered they were held responsible or liable when fires break out in turbines or when it causes spot fires on the ground,” Mr Paltridge said.

“Landholders can also be held responsible for the dismantling of turbines after 25 years.”

Mr Paltridge said he was also not impressed by wind farm energy companies’ claim that they create jobs.

“They say they are going to create 11 permanent jobs on the Allendale Wind Farm, but we are creating as many, if not more, jobs on our dairy farms with the ongoing effect of people buying our milk,” he said.

But according to Acciona Energy, South Australian standards set for wind farms in terms of issues such as noise for instance, are more rigorous than in the rest of Australia.

“Acciona Energy will monitor the noise of turbines on the properties (in Allendale East) and work that into the proposed layout to meet the standards,” an Acciona Energy spokesman said, adding that the distance of turbines from Allendale East residences has not yet been determined.

“We haven’t finalised the position of aviation safety lights on the turbines yet.

“The lights are not mandatory on turbines lower than 110 metres.

“Some of the Allendale Wind Farm turbines will be 100 metres high while others will be 80 metres high.”

The spokesman said the risk of birds being killed by turbine blades was “very low” and so was the risk of turbine fires.

“There are fire protection controls inside turbines and monitoring equipment that alert us when the risk of fire is rising,” he said.

“The purpose is to shut down the turbine before a fire occurs.”

After a lifespan of 25 years, turbines are to be dismantled and some landholders in other parts of Australia claim they have been held responsible in their lease agreements for dismantling costs, which are currently as high as $250,000 per turbine.

But the Acciona Energy spokesman assured Allendale East landholders that the responsibility and cost of dismantling turbines would not come down on landholders after a 25-year lease agreement period.

Residents will this week be notified of the process they can follow to voice objections or make submissions, according to Grant District Council chief executive Russell Peate.

“They will then have 14 days to lodge their submissions before it goes to an independent assessment panel where every view will be taken into account,” Mr Peate said.

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Comments

20 Responses to “Allendale East wind farm opposed”

  1. Jon Peters on October 16th, 2009 6:30 am 1

    Acciona say the landholders won’t have to pull the turbines down, they didn’t say they would!, so Mr Mayor will the residents and ratepayers of this shire be liable for the decommissioning????
    Turbines are a health hazard!!!
    Google waubra wind farm health issues to see what Acciona don’t want you to know!

  2. peter masters on October 16th, 2009 6:47 am 2

    After the mess acciona energy have made at waubra in vic, i could not understand how anyone would want to sign up with them to host turbines, what a disaster.
    They claim they will pull them down at the end, what a joke, why do you think they form a $1 company to run the windfarm? so they have no financial obligation at the end or if there is a fire, noise etc. The landholder is liable for all these problems, read the contract carefully!
    At waubra at least 20 people. probably more have become ill from the low frequency noise being emmited, some have had to leave their farms.
    Acciona are only here to claim the generous subsidy on offer, so they can ship all the money back to spain at the australian taxpayers expense, and they dont even provide a reliable supply of energy in return.
    windfarms just dont work, regardless of what spin the wind developers or greenies put on it the public are being ripped off and energy security is on a slippery slope.

  3. James on October 16th, 2009 9:57 am 3

    Infra sound is going to prove a huge headache to wind factory proponents, as well it should. Sub-audible sound has been used and experimented with for years by military forces as a weapon, able to disable enemy troops.

    While the sound emanating from wind turbines is not intended to harm humans, any sub-audible sound has the potential to do so under the right conditions.

    Wind turbines have been brought on the market and “farms” installed in a hell-for-leather manner throughout the world, all without sufficient investigation into their possible bad side-effects.

    Land owners considering signing up with wind factory promoters should check the lease conditions very carefully, as they may well end up being responsible for the health-damage and compensation law suits that will inevitably follow.

  4. Adam Naiova on October 16th, 2009 11:08 am 4

    What a surprise … an article on wind-farms and we get the usual pseudo-science commentary … happens every-time an article on wind-farms is published on ‘The Border Watch’ website!

    Nothing like a discussion on wind-farms or perhaps climate change to bring out the junk science ‘theories’!

  5. John on October 16th, 2009 11:24 am 5

    Typical mention something bad about wind turbines like their a health hazard and up pops catastrophic climate change. Catastrophic climate change has run its race, people now realise that it was all spin, were in a cooling pahse now

  6. peter masters on October 16th, 2009 12:01 pm 6

    Oh up pops Adam yet again claiming everyone against the scam that is windfarms is full of so called junk science.
    Funny thing is that windfarm supporters never have any science or hard evidence to back up their claims.
    Claims like windfarms reduce greenhouse gas emmisions. proven a lie
    Claims that wind turbines dont effect health, unyet hundreds of people living close by will tell you opposite.
    Claims that wind turbines dont even make infrasound, have you recently tested for infrasound near a windfarm? I can say that i have and have seen it fluctuate from 75 to 95 db.

    Wind farms are a con on all consumers, not just those living close to them.
    They do NOT provide reliable supply.
    They need to be backed up 100% of the time
    To back them up you need coal, or need to build more gas fired plants at extra cost.
    Id rather we have a reliable supply of power at a fair cost, than a eratic supply that costs over double of what we pay now. its really so simple!

  7. Loretta Emonston on October 16th, 2009 5:53 pm 7

    Richard, no-one is more sympathetic to your plight than me. I unfortunately live across from part of the Waubra Windfiasco that was organised clandestinely with stakeholders signed up quickly before we knew a thing about it. Waubra is now an industrial winfarm town and the blinking red lights that greet us at night are a constant reminder of the folly of the people who live around us and who are quietly complainging about noise etc. but who have signed contracts whereby they cannot go to the media or litigate. The so-called “Information Evening” at Waubra before they went up was held to finalise things for the stakeholders and the objectors present walked away from the evening stunned as they came to realise that it was already organised and that it was too late to do anything. VCat was a joke, as the V stands for Victoria and it was Bracks who wanted it to make sure he got the Greens vote at the next election. The Ballarat Mayor is a friend of his and so it was little wonder that our meeting at Waubra, held to inform residents about the ugly side of windfarms ( which is why they hurry the process so that objectors don’t have the time to organise) was interrumpted with a bomb threat and towers were put too close to houses due to the lack of any Council guidelines. There were two Windpower directors at our meeting handing out 10-page colour brochures printed by the Victorian Government. I am afraid the old saying “You can’t beat city hall” rings true when it comes to this issue, but perhaps councils are now more informed, like Moorabool, who are obviously looking at, among other things, towers being erected too close to homes. They are certainly noisy as well and yet stakeholders were told they were not and were taken up to Challicum Hills to stand underneath them on what was probably a calm day when they would not have made any noise. The windfarm tale is one of snake-oil salesmen who promise one thing but take the money and deliver another. With the government behind them, so as to get their Greenies votes, paying their way with the Victorian Superannuation Fund, there is little hope if they want to get these things up. They do not want them anywhere near Melbourne, so our part of town is ideal. I read on the internet recently: “…don’t worry, we only put them in rural areas.” Remember the two they wanted to erect near the westgate bridge some time ago? There was a great furore about it. While there are lazy gentlemen farmers who want money for doing nothing, panels who are handpicked rule in favour of windfarms and naive people who do not realise that their farms will be taken over and wrecked for all time, what hope is there for folk like us? Windpower promised football jumpers for the juniors and have given the “community” many freebees to get their trust and ultimately their land. Acciona, the Spanish company they sold out to, do just the same sort of things. I understand your pain and hope you can learn to live with the windfarm like we have had to. There are a lot of people out there who feel for you. These towers are the scourge of the countryside and we were told five years ago that no hill around Ballarat and district would be safe. Unfortunately that prediction looks to be coming to fruition.
    Regards,
    Loretta Edmonston — Waubra and District Landscape Guardians.

  8. JaydenC. on October 17th, 2009 1:31 am 8

    John, we’re in a cooling phase but the last decade was the hottest ever on record… Riiiight… If you think catastrophic climate change has run its race, I suggest you go to the Maldives or any other low lying pacific islands where the effects are being felt right now, today. Alternatively, go to Greenland, Antartica, any glacier… Or wait and see how this bushfire season pans out. Climate change is happening right now, and it’s all around you if you’ll just open your eyes.
    I don’t know how anyone can say it’s all spin when as more and more evidence is accumulated, every new prediction is more dire than the last. Anyway, the one thing no skeptic can answer is who on earth would be motivated to create such “spin”. What special interests are there? Who stands to benefit?
    Skeptics can’t produce any new evidence that hasn’t been thoroughly refuted 50 million times before, and there is no need to refute it further.

    As for the windfarms, at what proximity to the towers does the noise become a problem? Is it possible people should get their target right and instead of attacking wind power all together, taking the attitude of “yes, climate change sucks and wind power is part of the solution, but we want the towers further away from dwellings”?

  9. JaydenC. on October 17th, 2009 1:37 am 9

    Peter masters, there was a lengthy and interesting debate on this website a little while ago in which Adam was the /only/ person who supplied any hard evidence at all. The next closest thing was a couple of internet references from myself. The anti-wind camp tended to repeat itself making claims without even backing them up with a “because…”.
    (The discussion promptly ended when someone claimed coal is a renewable energy lol!)

  10. JIM ROBINSON on October 17th, 2009 8:16 am 10

    my wife had never suffered from vertigo in her life until the waubra wind farm started power generation. she then suffer vertigo and had many days off work because of it. she could not drive and was very unsteady on her feet and with head aches. you need to be aware of what these wind farms can do to your brain and body. sure the power companies say they are safe may be they are or is it just like the tobacco companies did. all for the money and stuff the health and scenery problems.

  11. Barbara on October 17th, 2009 11:20 am 11

    Here’s an idea — connect the power which is generated only by wind turbines to consumers who think it’s a good thing. Then we will see how they manage with an intermittent electricity supply.

  12. Adam Naiova on October 17th, 2009 11:51 am 12

    Barbara: ‘Here’s an idea  —  connect the power which is generated only by wind turbines to consumers who think it’s a good thing. Then we will see how they manage with an intermittent electricity supply.’

    Barbara, I like most other people who are in favour of wind-power I understand that wind-farms are more intermittent than coal-fired power stations.

    However, the power produced by wind-farms OFFSETS power that would otherwise have to be generated via coal-fired power stations (and I include here natural gas-fired power stations and so forth, etc).

    Therefore, it reduces the total AMOUNT of coal-generated electricity required by the power grid.

    Now, as I am sure you and other anti-windfarm people will rush to point out, a coal-fired power station cannot be operated by ‘flicking a switch’ on-and-off, whenever insufficient power is produced by windfarms.

    This is totally correct. Coal-fired power stations need start-up time, so will generally need to be kept operating most of the time.

    However, what people who make this point fail to take into account (or intentionally omit perhaps?; they tend to have a casual approach to scientific facts!), is that coal-fired power stations do not operate on a ‘binary’ basis, ie it is not a case of either 100% OUTPUT or 0% OUTPUT.

    Coal-fired power stationsoperate at varying levels of capacity.

    So therefore, during windy times, when wind turbines are producing high levels of power, the coal-fired power stations can operate at lower capacity than they would have to without wind-farms.

    When there is less wind, they will operate a higher capacity.

    Therefore, whilst there will still be a need for coal-fired power stations, there will be less CO2 emissions overall, as the coal-fired power stations will need to operate at full capacity for far less time than would be the case without wind turbines.

    This is a similar way to how home-owners are able to generate electricity by placing photo-voltaic solar cells on their roof.

    On sunny days, the cells will produce enough power to provide electricity for the house PLUS to feed surplus electricity into the grid.

    However, at night and on cloudy days, the solar cells will produce either none (at night) or insufficient energy for the house and the house will draw on the grid.

    Therefore, as more houses install these, they are little by little reducing CO2 emission, even though there is still a need for a back-up supply from coal-fired power stations.

    Now, I realise solar installations are far less controversial than wind-farms, however with regard to the mechanism via which CO2 emissions are reduced, they operate similarly.

    Any thinking person can understand this point and anyone who cannot, does not have even a basic understanding of how an electricity grid operates.

  13. peter masters on October 17th, 2009 5:54 pm 13

    Adam, what you say may be correct in theory when it comes to coal power generators. but in practice not one coal generator has slowed down production at any stage when the wind has been blowing in victoria, at least.
    I have been watching the output on the AEMO website and not once since the waubra windfarm has started and has been working, has any of the coal generators slowed done, or like Acciona claim stopped!
    The so called offsetting is a con, nothing is offset, coal is still being burnt at the same rate.
    The whole business of green energy leaves alot to be desired, the way it is set up will never reduce emmisions. While a green power generator can produce power at 2am when its not needed and then sell it at 10am, 5 days down the track is a total joke.
    Wind power developers on a whole are a dishonest bunch, like a above poster says let those who still support windpower connect to it and see how long the food in the fridge lasts.

  14. peter masters on October 17th, 2009 6:08 pm 14

    Jayden, coal is renewable, it just takes longer to renew, so therefor it is renewable energy.
    That said coal does not renew at a sustainable rate, but at the moment its the only way we have to produce reliable energy, unless we go down the nuclear rd.
    Nuclear energy should be put on the agenda here, its clearly less polluting and works all the time,
    Unless geothermal can be developed in a major way in quick time, we will continue to play around the edges with wind which to date has done nothing to put a dent in the use of coal, which is what we should be aiming for.

  15. Emma on October 17th, 2009 8:12 pm 15

    Accionia are set to destroy Allendale East as has been done by it at Waubra. The truth about adverse health effects on the residents at Waubra is out and Acconia (Brett Thomas) is doing EVERYTHING to try to silence those speaking out any further. I don’t believe participating landowners at Waubra are legally prevented from speaking out or evening suing. The contract they have signed (view a copy at http://www.spacountryguardians.org.au) is scandolous. Completely uncommercial and all drafted in Acconia’s favour. You’d be mad to sign it. Acconia are just bluffing the Waubra farmers who are hosting the turbines. These farmers need to get independent legal advice on their contracts. And fast!

  16. Hamish Cumming on October 17th, 2009 9:05 pm 16

    Re.Adam Naiova on October 17th, 2009 11:51 am
    Coal fired powerstations take approximately 8 hours to ramp up or dow. (Power station engineers interview ABC) So generally wind farms are ignored.
    South Australia boasts 20% power generating capacity from the wind. But look at Tenth ACCC Regulatory Conference July 2009. AEMO’s David Swift presented how the total peak supply from wind power in SA. was only3% of their rated capacity for summer or winter. If You calculatethat out, it is costing us taxpayers $120,000 per household that the wind farms are supposedly powering. (ou could take 2 or 3 houses completely off the grid for that with solar.) And that is without the massive, tradeable renewable energy certificates (REC’s) companies will be getting for producing virtually nothing. Acciona will be claiming close to $600,000 per turbine per year REC’s(Quoted from Energy and Earth Resources DPI Victoria Sept 2009, and using Acciona’s claimed GHG abatements also Sept 2009.) , Acciona can probably resell them for $1M per turbine per year to aluminium producers or other industries..
    Not a bad money earner funded by tax payers for a company that is not really producing anything tangable. (Peter Masters AEMO watching is correct, No coal saved means no GHG saved. a very expensive con…)

  17. JaydenC. on October 17th, 2009 9:15 pm 17

    Umm has anyone noticed that Waubara is ONE windfarm? Has anyone noticed that Waubara is in Victoria, and this very article says standards for turbine noise etc. are more thorough in SA than they are in Victoria? Is anyone complaining about any windfarms in SA? Because I’ve only heard complaining about Waubara.
    Some people have other issues with wind energy, okay, fine. But I think a lot of people need to set their target straight. Don’t campaign against green energy and green jobs; if the problem is noise etc., campaign to have the turbines a safe distance away from dwellings!

    As for wind energy in general, I think people get caught up in thinking once the turbines go up, that’s it, it’s wind energy forever and ever. Wind is just a (legitimate) part in the solution.
    We face a period now where we simply MUST reduce emissions, there is no argument here, it must be done. Problem is, renewable base-load technologies like geothermal aren’t yet fully developed. People are working on that as fast as possible, and it’ll come, but in the meantime we must act as best as possible with the technologies we have. Wind and solar are here for us now; currently around a fifth of all South Australia’s energy comes from wind. In a decade or two when the turbines come to the end of their useful lives, geothermal technology should be well and truly established and running full steam ahead.

    Emma, I don’t believe Accionia actually set out saying “right, let’s destroy this little town” but anyway, what of all the coal lobby, set out to destroy your children’s future for their own financial gains?

  18. mick on October 17th, 2009 10:36 pm 18

    Jayden, you say the coal lobby are set to destroy our childrens future, but what of us and now? do we deserve to live with intermittant power supply? do our families and friends deserve to be exploited by greedy big business (often the same companies as are involved in coal. ie international power) making them sick with infrasound. And pushing up the cost of power for no benefit to the enviroment or to those who can least afford it.
    The waubra windfarm has drawn many complaints, it is owned by Acciona the same company trying to snivel its way in here, yes its one windfarm, but its certainly not the first one to create infrasound and drive people from their homes, just look at what happened in Toora vic a few years before this, surely the lessons should have been learnt then?
    Wind energy is not stopping us burning coal, i just dont see the point in us paying extra for it , when it appears not to be giving a benefit.
    If wind energy companies want subsidy via the MRET scheme then they must be open and transparent and provide hourly results of power output at all windfarms, its totally wrong to get public money and not let us know what we are getting for it.
    Its unfortunate that more emphasis wasnt put on base load technology in the MRET, because as it stands its going to ge used up by windfarms which are total duds.

  19. JaydenC. on October 17th, 2009 11:47 pm 19

    Umm once again Toora is in Victoria. I’m yet to hear complaints about SA wind farms with the supposedly more thorough South Australian regulations.

  20. mick on October 18th, 2009 8:55 am 20

    It really doesnt matter where the windfarm is. The SA regulations just like the vic ones fail to take into account low frequency noise and infrasound.
    Yes you are correct that the SA regulations are better in relation to audiable noise. But they need to be better, the world health organisation state that when there is a high percentage of LFN that the audiable noise should be no greater than 30db. The real problem is the developers who claim there is no LFN at all, and then go on to say there is no evidence of turbines causing these problems.
    If they were honest about it and sited the turbines well away from homes you would find there being way less complaints about wind farms.
    LFN travels much further than audiable noise, and is not stopped by objects in the same way as audiable noise is, this means that distance is the only way to stop these problems.
    while our government basically offers a free handout to developers you will continue to get people with no experience in the electricity industry who know absolutly nothing about generation proposing turbines in silly places.

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