Page: 3 Power to Braziers

Barrier Daily Truth
Wednesday 25/6/2008

Negotiations between Silverton landholders and a wind farm developer may proceed within weeks following amendments to land use passed by the State Government last week. "It's definitely heading in the right direction:' said Nigel Lawrence of Nine Mile Station, one of four graziers in negotiation with a developer which wants to build a $2 billion wind farm at Silverton. The Government last Friday passed the Western Lands and Crown Lands Amendment (Special Purpose Leases) Bill 2008, which will allow parallel leases to exist on the same land.

Minister for Lands, Tony Kelly, said the new Bill would allow graziers to keep their connection with the land, whilst giving security for major project investments. Mr Lawrence said yesterday the Bill would allow the graziers to negotiate from a position of strength for compensation under the Western Lands Act. He said the graziers won on two key areas in the amended Bill. The first was that if the wind farm was discontinued, then the special purpose lease arrangements would end and the land will revert back to its Western Lands Act lease origins.

"There's no reason why the land should be left as a parallel lease," said Mr Lawrence. Secondly, and most importantly, Mr Lawrence said the general purpose lessee, or landholder, gets to decide if they want to commit to any project. "If we don't want a wind farm, we can say no." He said this gave a measure of bargaining power to landholders in terms of compensation for land use. "It also takes some control away from the government" Mr Lawrence said the Bill means parallel lease arrangements will not kick in until compensation rights are negotiated.

The landholders, however, are still concerned about where the government revenue from the wind farm will go. Minister Tony Kelly said any money would go towards improved facilities and infrastructure across Western Division communities, to be determined by a committee. But Mr Lawrence said this may only occur on Crown Land. "Some sporting venues, for example, won't have access to that money unless they're on Crown Land" He said the landholders never had a problem with relinquishing money to a community fund, but wanted it kept in the far west.

"We want Broken Hill and surrounding communities to benefit" He said a committee was a good idea, as long as it represented a broad cross section of the community. Mr Lawrence said whilst they were seeking clarification on aspects of the amended Bill, negotiations would now probably start in earnest with Epuron, one part of the group behind the wind farm, and Department-of Lands. "That'll happen in the next couple of weeks." The Bill's passing provides tenure for the project to go ahead, said Epuron's Executive Director Martin Poole.

"This Bill provides a sustainable framework for land tenure for this project;' he told BDT yesterday. Mr Poole said he was pleased the milestone had been passed and that Epuron had been negotiating continuously with the landholders for over a year. "1 think the passing of these amendments provides a way to finalise the process," he said. Epuron is now waiting for the NSW Department of Planning to assess its Environmental Assessment for the project.

"When that's accepted, it will go on public display and the planning document will be the final proposition," said Mr Poole. Meanwhile, more wind monitoring masts (measuring 61 to 75m in height) are planned to gather more data on the wind farm site. One mast has already been erected and Mr Poole said the extra data will help better assess wind flow.