NTAG: ‘No Social Licence’ for Wind Farm

Media release – No Turbine Action Group (NTAG), 8 September 2021

In response to Epuron’s Donna Bolton interview on ABC news, Wednesday 8th September

NO SOCIAL LICENCE FOR EPURON WIND FARM IN CENTRAL HIGHLANDS

Epuron’s plan for a further revised 47-turbine wind farm at St Patricks Plains near the Steppes Historic site
has been strongly criticised as a token effort by a Central Highlands community group opposed to the wind
farm.

Chair of the No Turbine Action Group (NTAG), David Ridley said the project is in the wrong place with too
many turbines, too high and located next to gateway roads into the Highlands Lakes.

“It will destroy the Highlands brand. Epuron hasn’t listened to the community. Its response has been to
ignore strongly voiced objections at community meetings in February this year and remove a token 3
turbines. The proposal started with 13 turbines, then Epuron put in an ambit claim for 67 and now pat
themselves on the back for industrialising the landscape with 47 turbines over 10 000ha, taking away the
uniqueness of the Central Highlands and ignoring the sensitivity of the sub-alpine location.”

“There is no social licence to build a wind farm at St Patricks Plains.” The community has voiced its
opposition loudly and clearly at meetings, through letter writing, lobbying, social media, radio, feedback
and surveys.”

“Epuron turbines will be seen from World Heritage Areas, and at least 240m tall will dominate the
landscape and corridor roads into the Highland Lakes. They will be seen and heard at Penstock Lagoon, an
internationally iconic fly-fishing gem and the Steppes State Reserve, a unique heritage area.”

“The St Patricks Plains site is a biodiversity hotspot and has 45 threatened plants including 12 nationally
threatened plants. Epuron has not adopted best practice setbacks from turbines for the many on-site
Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle nests but applied inappropriate 1km buffer distances developed 35 years
ago for ground-based forestry operations, totally irrelevant for noisy turbines that are three times the height of
the Wrest Point Casino.”

“St Patricks Plains Wind Farm is not viable without taxpayer subsidies. Epuron is getting out of
renewables, is for sale, and is trying to push approvals for projects that do not have a social licence such
as St Patricks Plains and Stanley, then on-sell to a different company to construct and operate.”

NTAG believes that a social licence is now required for planning approval in most renewable energy zones
in Australia and that Epuron’s Tasmanian projects represent a liability for a prospective buyer of the
Company. Mr Ridley said NTAG supports renewable energy projects in the right location, but not a massive
industrial 10 000ha sub-division at the proposed St Patricks Plains location.

Featured image above: Penstock Lagoon by Mike Kline, via Wikimedia Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).