The North Coast Environment Council renewed its calls for renewable energy projects to be built without further land-clearing.
In a submission to the Oven Mountain Pumped Hydro Scheme, the NCEC objected to the clearing of 440 ha of identified wilderness and numerous other impacts, many of which have not been quantified by the proponents. Oven Mountain is between Kempsey and Armidale.
“We support renewable energy projects where they don’t involve the destruction of forests and threatened species habitats,” said Ashley Love a spokesperson for the NCEC.
“The Oven Mountain Pumped Hydro site is steep forested slopes. It is land that as far back as the Wran Government in 1985 was identified as an important component of the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. If the land were added to the National Park uses it would give people accessible river access.
“We are concerned that this proposal hasn’t adequately looked at the climate risks. What happens when there is no water? The Kempsey water supply is vulnerable to drought. The Government’s climate modelling is years behind our lived reality. They are planning on a 1.5 degree global temperature rise by 2060, when there is a high likelihood earth will cross that threshold next year.
“With more than 2 million tonnes of rock needing to be drilling out, we’re also concerned about the leaching of Arsenic and Antimony into the river system. We know that those elements are present in the rock and have contaminated the Macleay river in the past, which has been particularly disastrous for the upstream communities.
Mr Love also said that the Council were concerned about the short time frame for public comment for such a significant proposal. There was no presentation by the proponent to a community meeting, where people had a chance to hear concerns raised by community members.
He also said that insufficient information had been supplied for the community to have confidence in the business case or the viability of the project as information on this was deemed ‘commercial in confidence’. “But we know that in many ways it is the community that picks up the tab when costs blow out, as we’ve seen in the Snowy 2.0 Pumped Hydro Project.”
“We need to have confidence that this is a genuine solution that isn’t going to damage the environment. At the moment, we don’t have that confidence,” he said.
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Submissions on the proposal closed today.
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I too have put in a submission and in the time since have contacted many politicians, councilors, the project owners, epa………. Mostly without any response.
I have tried to highlight missing information and to inform Planning NSW and relevant Govt bodies about possible pollution to Macleay River, damage to Aboriginal sites, rare species and mines.
The EIS did not take into account historical deposits of Antimony and Arsenic which were mapped by NSW Mines department and referenced in books, they did not come up on google searches because they were found before Google was invented. There is a Known deposit of 20,000 tons of Arsenic ore at Georges Junction in an area that will be impacted. I pointed this out and my reaching out has been ignored. There were plans to build an Arsenic processing plant there to process the ore into soluble white arsenic for weed killers and sheep dip. The plant was not built but the ore is still there.
There will be about 12 Aboriginal sites destroyed or severely damaged and there has been little work to try to avoid this. More sites will be found with the building of roads and 2 dams. LIDAR technology was not used to map out the ground, which is industry standard.
Many Aboriginal people were not aware of the project and still are not aware as it was not advertised widely and consultation period to respond to 9,000 pages was 28 days over the period of the Voice referendum.
The area has several rare and endangered species; there are about 6 SII species including the brush tailed wallaby and 2 bats. These animals will be frightened by the 3,00 blasts, about 3 a day for 1,000 days building roads, dams and tunnells.
There is a rare plant called the Willi Willi Laurel which grows in the general area and no where else in the world, it was not mentioned in EIS nor in responces to the EIS by Government departments. I have informed many of this including EIS, the Minister and Planning with no response.
There are known deposits of Antimony as well as gold and other minerals in the project area and in close proximity at Halls Peak which is less than 10 Km away. Halls peak and Hillgrove have major expansions expected with much exploration and the high price of gold and Antimony has drastically improved its price. Multiple large mines are planned.
Power lines from Oven Mountain are planned to go near Halls Peak mine area.
Would your organization be able to help stop this project on the above information.
I see a major environmental problem if this project goes ahead and it may help the mining all will contribute to the existing levels of Arsenic and Antimony in the Macleay river.
Please google “river antimony pollution” when i did the first post referred to rivers in China and the Macleay River in Australia. When asking for Australian rivers the Macleay comes up, also for Arsenic. I was unable to send screenshot.