People Advocating Green Energy
The Sunshine Coast Environmental Council (SCEC) is the umbrella organisation of more than 50 community groups. In this issue of ECO, we feature the group PAGE and its work which, if successful, will encourage the State government to get serious about climate change and revise their whole strategy of power generation and distribution.
The latest community group to become a member of SCEC, PAGE is fighting to protect community members and at the same time playing an active role in reducing carbon emissions on the Sunshine Coast.
PAGE – the useful acronym doubling for the Powerline Action Group Eumundi and People Advocating Green Energy – was formed in 2007 in response to a proposal which threatens the communities west of Eumundi with high voltage powerlines and pylons marching across an idyllic landscape.
What to expect - transmission towers, power lines and their easement cut a swathe through Beerburrum State Forest. Photograph: John Burrows
The proposal comes from Powerlink, the government agency responsible for Queensland’s power transmission network, and involves power lines connecting a present substation at Woolooga, up past Gympie, with a new substation close to Eumundi.
It’s all part of a larger scheme to extend new transmission lines on wide easements the length of the Sunshine Coast. Exact details aren’t readily available, but it’s clear that the scheme will lock the Coast into a carbon dependent future.
Most of the new line from Woolooga is planned to run alongside an existing easement, but it’s the final nine kilometres, running through Eerwah Vale, which will have a profound effect on community and environment.
PAGE has been fighting the proposal from the outset. They make the compelling point that it’s just another large-scale old-world engineering solution to current climate change challenges and argue strongly for alternatives.
Demand management could see power use by many businesses and households reduced by up to 30 per cent. During Brisbane’s water crisis, a public awareness campaign plus regulation resulted in water use being cut dramatically – up to 54 per cent in 18 months. Why not try the same approach with power?
Powerlink also seems to disregard renewable energy. PAGE promoted a plan by Sanctuary Energy Ltd to provide power on the Sunshine Coast using solar thermal generators, a plan which our Transmission Network Service Provider casually dismissed.
PAGE also supports SCEC’s 1000 Solar Roofs Project, a successful community initiative to provide solar panels to roofs on the Sunshine Coast – there are over 800 households signed up at the time of writing, demonstrating the huge potential for renewable energy.
Recognising that political support is vital, PAGE has met with the Minister for Mines & Energy and the Opposition. They also organised a State Election candidate’s forum, held at Eumundi which was very well attended. There was support from the former Noosa Council, and PAGE is planning a presentation to the Sunshine Coast Regional Council for its backing.
PAGE has an informative website, and has held community meetings and information days. Affected residents had the benefit of workshops to help them respond to documents required under the community consultation process - the draft Terms of Reference and recently the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
The draft EIS was 1900 pages long and widely seen as being too complex, not to mention daunting in size, for most people to digest.
Community members got together with an environmental scientist and other specialists to respond to the draft EIS, and produced a comprehensive and hard hitting document, concluding that the assessment and the assessment process were fundamentally flawed.
“The draft EIS can be characterised as misleading, incorrect, inadequate and lacking in critical detail,” said PAGE coordinator Graham Smith.
“It clearly lacks any independence in its analysis, conclusions or recommendations.
“Unfortunately, this is consistent with the woeful consultation and poorly detailed studies undertaken by Powerlink and their paid consultants.”
In their response to the draft EIS, PAGE emphasised their desire to one day make clean, sustainable energies a reality in the power profile of the Sunshine Coast and Queensland.
Along with many other crucial issues, the assessment of environmental impacts was seen as totally inadequate.
The Richmond Birdwing Butterfly - a local colony faces extinction if Powerlink has its way. Photograph by Jennifer Broomhall
A case in point -- the beautiful but endangered Richmond Birdwing Butterfly has only a few small pockets of suitable habitat remaining, and the most northern of these, right in the path of the proposed powerlines, could be compromised if Powerlink gets its way.
Koalas too are set to suffer – a loss of 20 hectares of koala habitat at a time when their numbers in SEQ are plummeting.
Both of these species have special interest for photographer Jennifer Broomhall and husband Fred who live on a property which will be affected if the powerlines come through.
Registered under the Land for Wildlife programme – along with 21 other properties which will be affected – the Broomhall’s block straddles a ridge which is a watershed for the Mary and Maroochy River catchments. There is high plant diversity with areas of riparian rain forest and remnant vine forest.
Koalas are seen (or heard) frequently, thanks in part to koala food trees planted since the couple moved there 32 years ago.
The Richmond Birdwing Butterfly occurs there as well, and like the koalas is much photographed. It only has one food source - the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly vine. There’s a fine specimen of the vine on the next door block, unfortunately right in the path of Powerlink’s easement.
The draft EIS recommends that this vine be translocated, even though scientific opinion is adamant that it doesn’t survive replanting. So the local population of the butterfly is doomed if the Powerlink proposal goes ahead.
PAGE has found many deficiencies like this in the draft EIS. With the final EIS due by the end of this year, the group plans to continue campaigning and gaining community support, and intends to lobby the Minister for Mines & Energy highlighting the many inadequacies in the process.
Related articles:
- Green jobs are the key
- Remove solar hot water from renewable energy target
- Green Legends of the Sunshine Coast
- The Greenhouse: a very green conversation
- Sunshine Coast is Australia’s first Transition Region
Leave a Response
Entries(RSS)