The Wellington Times

In reply to Derek McKay’s letter to the Times of 1st May, I feel that the residents of Wellington do need to know the problems they are and are likely to face if the proposal for a gas fired power station overlooking Wellington is not rescinded.

The State Government is not going to bale out Wellington Council on this matter. The planning laws state in relation to noisy developments that if the noise is predicted, (by experts hopefully),to be over a certain reading that the proposal will not be approved. However if for whatever reason the actual noise produced exceeds the critical level then the proponents of the development have to 1) try to reduce the noise level at the source ( 60 million dollars failed to do this at Uranquinty), 2) if that fails then compensate the affected people and 3) if that is not accepted by them, buy them out at market value (not defined as being before or after prices crash).

It is scant comfort for McKay to say ERM did not own Uranquinty at the time when residents objected to the noise because by his company’s own admission they sold it on to Origin Energy when it got too hot to handle.

Proponents of gas fired power stations, ERM and the rest, have a checkered history of putting in a development proposal and understating the expected noise level. If they didn’t, the proposal would be rejected in the first place. The historical facts show that most cases result in noise levels well above that allowed (up to 40% above). Most if not all these disputes are solved by the proponents of the gas fired power stations buying out the objectors. I matters not a jot if ERM to this point has not bought anyone out. Perhaps they sold the business off before it was necessary.

ERM is anxious for a delegation to visit Oakey Power Station run by them. They forget to mention that at Oakey the turbines are much smaller than those proposed at Wellington or the ones at Uranquinty.

One can understand the zeal of ERM executives to progress this matter. Like all the companies endeavouring to set up gas fired power stations their overwhelming loyalty is to their shareholders not the hapless citizens of Wellington or any other town.

However I cannot understand the enthusiasm of the Mayor and some of his Councillors for the proposal. Anyone who thought you could build a gas fired power station with turbines bigger than a jumbo jet engine on the outskirts of a town of 4-5,000 people and not keep most of them awake at night is not very practical and not looking after the wellbeing of the people who elected them.

Common sense would indicate that this power station proposal will eventually be refused and if ERM believes it has a laudable case for a power station near Wellington it could save a lot of time and heartache by investigating another site now. I do not buy the argument that “it has to be next to the electricity sub station. ERM has admitted it does not wish to have to deal with multiple landholders to bring the generated power in to the sub station from another site. Why not? All the wind farm proponents are in the same boat and they appear to have worked it out allright.

On the issue of hundreds of jobs for Wellington residents, at the public meeting at the RSL in April, ERM used words such as possible, might but not assurances. Past experience with the jail would not back up that promise. Since the promise of hundreds of jobs was the main inducement for Council agreeing to the proposal what is left for Wellington except being host to an unpopular and noisy noxious industry and a depopulated town.

Peter Carter,

“Umagarlee”,

Wellington