Moneymakers or wildlife killers? Rural and coastal communities at odds over renewable energy

Charlie Prell is a fourth-generation farmer from Crookwell, NSW, and has 2000 acres with 1200 sheep, 250 cattle and 12 Crookwell Wind Farm turbines. The land is also on the path of the proposed $4.9 billion HumeLink transmission line.

“We went through the Millennium drought nearly 20 years ago now and tried to sell the land that we’ve just negotiated the sale on, and couldn’t sell it,” says Prell, who agreed to sell the farm for family reasons.

“Nobody wanted to buy it. Now things have changed. We’ve got 12 wind turbines on our land. And the income stream from those turbines has attracted buyers, even international buyers.” He found an Australian buyer.

Prell says they worked the farm through the wind farm’s construction, and the income after completion helped them exit the 2016-2019 drought well stocked and in good financial shape. Wind farm income varies from a third to a half of the farm’s gross income ($300,000 to $400,000).

Susan Findlay-Tickner, a grain farmer from Horsham in Western Victoria who hosts five turbines of the Murra Warra Wind Farm on her property, says construction of the $760 million wind farm brought $80 million to her regional community. The wind farm is now owned by Andrew Forrest’s Squadron Energy.

She has also had 14 transmission towers across her land for half a century. “Our family and the farmers near us have farmed as usual, under and around those transmission lines.”

Andrew Locke, who runs 1800 merino ewes and 100 cattle on 600 hectares in New England, has invested in a nearby wind project to smooth out the income peaks and troughs from the farm, which turns over more than $1 million a year.

“I think I can safely say that if the seasons continue the way they are, and in my view, they’re getting worse, then this will double income. In good years that may not be the case, but we’re having to deal with bad years.”

Katy McCallum’s Kilkivan Action Group fears the transmission line connecting the Borumba pumped hydro scheme to the Woolooga substation will evade proper environmental scrutiny because PowerLink, the state government-owned monopoly building it, is already using heavy-handed tactics to negotiate land access deals.

McCallum says the Nangur skink wasn’t mentioned in the state environmental impact assessment for Borumba pumped hydro. Her group is urging federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to include it in her assessment, but fears the request will fall on deaf ears. She says power lines are one of the three main killers of wedge-tailed eagles.

“I do know that what is going on right now is morally wrong. It’s environmentally wrong, and there needs to be a federal Senate inquiry,” she says.

Bruce Murray, president of the Hawks Nest Tea Gardens Progress Association, is concerned that wind farms in the NSW Hunter Offshore Wind Zone, 20km offshore, will separate the only nesting place for the Australian Gould’s petrel at Hawks Nest Beach from its feeding grounds and migratory routes.

Murray says private advice from one of the scientists involved in the assessment process “is the petrel will not survive the wind farm”. He says Bowen hasn’t provided scientific backup for the protective measures included in the Hunter offshore zone declaration, including a 20km exclusion zone for the petrel.

He’s concerned offshore wind farms will escape scrutiny because of their favoured status. However, no licences have been granted, and successful applicants will have to earn a federal environmental green light before building. US data – mainly from onshore wind farms – suggests they kill only a tiny fraction of the birds killed by cats, buildings and cars.

Murray’s also concerned a Hunter offshore wind farm will interfere with whale migration routes.

“It seems that a lot of the renewable projects are being given waivers for a lot of concerns that would sink most projects,” he says.