Bald Hills gets a second wind

South Gippsland Sentinel Times
Wednesday 11/6/2008 Page: 3

THE 52-turbine Bald Hills Wind Farm project has been resurrected after a Japanese company announced on Friday it had bought the proposed farm from Wind Power. Mitsui and Co has acquired 100 per cent of the shares of Bald Hills Wind Farm, a special purpose company holding the development rights to the wind farm project. Construction of the 104 megawatt 1750 hectare wind farm was planned to begin this month, but Wind Power had seemingly gone cold on the project.

Former Federal environment minister Senator Ian Campbell controversially rejected the project in April 2006 because of fears it would threaten the endangered Orange-Bellied Parrot, but then overturned that decision in the following December. But now Mitsui is expecting it will have the wind farm in operation by 2011 and it is expected to generate renewable energy sufficient to power the equivalent of 62,000 average households and avoid up to 335,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum.

The Tarwin Valley Coastal Guardians have been campaigning against the project for six years and spokesman Tim Le Roy said he was disappointed that the group and the community had not been consulted by Mitsui prior to the takeover. "Were very disappointed they haven't given us a call," he said. "I will be formally pursuing the reasons why they haven't consulted with us and the community and I will be inviting them down.

"Hopefully Mitsui will be more reasonable than the landowners at Bald Hills and the former directors and shareholders at Wind Power. "In their press release they said there is widespread community support for their project, but I don t know who they've been talking to in the local area. Perhaps they've been misled. "The Australian Conservation Foundation, South Gippsland Shire Council and the Gippsland Coastal Board are all against it, so there's definitely been no support on the ground.

"There might be a lot of support from the greenies in Melbourne, but there isn't in the local area." "Victorian landscape should not be sacrificed for Japanese carbon traders. "If Japanese companies want to make electricity from wind they should do it on whichever mountain they choose in Japan. Don t do it down our way," he said. "Rural communities don't need these companies coming in here and exploiting our assets for their benefit.

"Ifs also interesting that the landowners there were told by Wind Power that they would always be dealing with them, and that they were always going to be developing the project themselves. "Now they've flogged it off to the Japanese. They did that up at Waubra where they flogged it off to the Spanish, and they flogged Wonthaggi to the union super funds. What else have they got to sell?" Mr Le Roy said Mitsui has many more hurdles to overcome before the wind farm is built.

"We've fought against this for six years and we knew that Wind Power were desperately trying to raise enough money to keep it going so we're not going to stop now," he said. Lindsay Marriott is a supporter of the project and if it goes ahead he will have seven wind turbines built on his 640-acre property.

Mr Marriott has welcomed the Mitsui takeover and said he "knew it was coming'. We have a good relationship with the company, and the company is a very honest and open company," he said. "I think this is a positive way forward for human beings and its something that we're going to have to do. "This project is about renewable energy and energy for Australia. "There are a few emerging issues coming out now and one is that Australia is going to be very short of energy, and clean energy in particular.

"This happens to be a very, very good wind farm site so I would be glad to see it go ahead." Mr Marriott was particularly scathing about some of the claims made by the Tarwin Valley Coastal Guardians. "I think you'll find that the Bald Hills Wind Farm has got much more support than what the Guardians would have you believe," Mr Marriott said.

"If you were to spend much time in Wonthaggi with the man on the street, you'd find that the Wonthaggi wind farm has been remarkably well accepted by the people there. "I truly believe that the majority of people living in this part of the world, let alone the rest of the world, are pretty tired of the nastiness and the misinformation that some of these anti-wind farm groups are promoting."