Media release – Keep Tasmania’s Highlands Unique No Turbine Action Group (NTAG), 18 August 2023
Opposition Group Calls for Moratorium on St Patricks Plains wind turbine project
The Keep Tasmania’s Highlands Unique No Turbine Action Group (NTAG) calls for a moratorium on the St Patricks Plains wind turbine project proposal.
An article in today’s Australian newspaper by Matthew Denholm, ‘Cutting-edge wind farm still an eagle killer’ reports that there have been five endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle deaths recorded over the past year at the Cattle Hill Wind Farm. This is located near the proposed St Patricks Plains project in the Highland Lakes area of Tasmania.
“The efficacy of the avian detection system, IdentiFlight, installed to prevent eagle deaths, gives little confidence as a protective measure against turbine collisions and has yet to be independently assessed and verified,” a spokesperson for the opposition group, Victoria Onslow said.
The proposed St Patricks Plains wind turbine project’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) has been submitted to the Central Highlands Council and the Environmental Protection Authority for review and is available for public scrutiny and comment until 25th September.
The project’s EIS, however, relies on the same unproven IdentiFlight system as its answer to protecting the resident eagles from death by blade collision on the St Patricks Plains site. There are 17 eagle nests within or close to its boundary.
With an expired Threatened Tasmanian Eagles Recovery Plan (2006-2010) and an unproven, unreliable technology being proposed by Ark Energy as a mitigation measure for an endangered species, NTAG calls for a moratorium on the assessment of the project until the iconic eagle’s survival can be safe-guarded.
Featured image above: IdentiFlight system as depicted on the company’s website. We have contacted them for comment.
