Letter to Bruce Abernethy - accessible format

Dear Bruce,

Planning permit application PA1800406 for the Mount Fyans Wind Farm –further submission on new information

Moyne Shire Council (Council) notes that the Department of Transport and Planning has provided three weeks, from 18 September to 10 October 2024, for Council to make a submission on the applicant’s further materials. This three-week period falls entirely within the Council’s caretaker period. In our view, this compromises the consultation and permit assessment process, and means that the Minister will not have the benefit of input from the elected representatives of Moyne on the further materials, which cover important and complex environmental issues.

In the short timeframe provided, Council has identified below some of the key questions and deficiencies that arise on the face of the applicant’s further materials.

The applicant’s further materials

The new material purports to respond to the planning panel’s recommendations that:

  • the applicant provide further information to the satisfaction of DEECA relating to the Brolga and other fauna species before the permit application is considered further (Recommendation 1);
  • if a planning permit is issued, it includes the conditions proposed by the panel as a starting point (Recommendation 2).

With respect to recommendation 1, in some cases, the applicant has not responded to the planning panel’s recommendations and in particular has not provided information relating to:

  • potential Brolga breeding areas (1(a));
  • additional flight behaviour studies to inform Collision Risk Modelling (1(b));
  • potential impacts and mitigation measures arising from SBWB movement within and through the site (1(e)); the cumulative impacts to fauna species including from existing wind energy facilities (1(f)); and
  • potential impacts on species listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (1(g)).

In addition, the applicant has not sought to recalculate the turbine free buffers around Brolga flocking and breeding sites or to re-site turbines and other overhead infrastructure outside the buffers (1(d)).

In some cases, the applicant has proposed to provide further information only after a permit is issued, notwithstanding the panel’s recommendation that this should be provided before a permit is granted. This includes the recommendations to complete a Brolga Compensation Plan (1(c)) and a Bat and Avifauna Management Plan (1(i)).

Council is concerned and unable to understand the reasons why the information provided by the applicant is not consistent with the panel’s recommendations.

Measures to protect the Southern Bent-wing Bat (SBWB)

As Council raised with the Panel, in the 12 months prior to the hearing there were reports received from existing wind farms in Moyne of mortalities of a Brolga, southern bent wing bats and grey-headed flying foxes. Existing approved BAM plans have not provided appropriate outcomes as they do not contain triggers or action plans, and defer to research and further monitoring rather than curtailment.

The data and impacts are now better understood due to operational wind farms in Victoria and overseas research. If a permit is to be issued for this project, any BAM plan should incorporate appropriate curtailment for species protection, based on a range of factors like wind speed, seasonal and daily curfews such as dawn to dusk.

Curtailment: Council emphasises the need for low wind speed curtailment to apply even before any SBWB mortalities are identified. The revised Adaptive Management Plan (AMP) (Appendix H) still requires that SBWB mortalities occur before low wind speed curtailment is introduced and would also introduce it only at the turbine associated with the mortality (see 9.1).

Significant impact trigger: The significant impact trigger (SIT) is the number of SBWB mortalities that would need to be reached for certain mitigation measures to apply. The applicant proposes a SIT of 100 mortalities based on the population viability analysis it has conducted, and proposes that reaching the significant impact will trigger a contribution of $50,000 to the offset research fund and the need for further investigations and studies. The number of mortalities would be calculated in accordance with the ‘Annualised Impact Assessment’, being an estimated number of annual mortalities derived from the number of carcasses actually identified. As we understand it, the SIT would be breached when 13 or more SBWB carcasses are identified in a 12-month period.

Council proposes that the SIT should be lowered and should trigger more specific curtailment measures. Council notes that 13 identified carcasses may represent a significantly higher figure than the estimated 100 mortalities. While we acknowledge the uncertainty involved in dealing with estimates, it remains the case that, based on relevant models, the plausible range of mortalities for one identified carcass is as high as 70. This means that identifying 13 carcasses could plausibly represent up to 910 deaths. In these circumstances, Council submits that a lower SIT should be imposed to reflect a precautionary approach to dealing with a critically endangered species such as the SBWB.

Further, if the SIT is exceeded, Council submits that more specific and wide-spread curtailment measures should be required, rather than the general requirement to conduct further studies. While there is room for further studies to be useful, Council submits that it is preferable to consider and specify now what measures should be implemented before awaiting a significant number of SBWB deaths.

Further information

Council submits that the applicant should also be required to provide all of the further information recommended by the panel, and complete related actions such as recalculating the turbine free buffers around Brolga flocking and breeding sites before a permit is granted.

As the panel noted, there is currently too much uncertainty about the project’s potential for material impacts on the environment, particularly the Brolga and the SBWB. This level of uncertainty outweighs the positive outcomes of the project and tips the balance of the project to one that will not have a net community benefit or achieve a sustainable development outcome.

Requiring the further information may address these concerns, potentially leading to a modified proposal.

Council submits that the applicant’s proposal to decline to provide this information should not be accepted. This is particularly important given the proposal was not subject to an Environment Effects Statement. When dealing with threatened or critically endangered species, now is the time to consider the possible impacts and mitigation measures as fully as possible, rather than after the wind farm is already in operation, when it may be too late to reverse any harm.

Permit conditions

Council also submits that the permit conditions proposed by the panel, in particular those listed above, should be adopted.

These conditions are sensible and reasonable measures to ensure the full environmental impacts of the project are properly monitored and understood. Given the panel’s important statutory role in the planning process and the significant community input into the panel hearings, it would be undesirable now simply to prefer the applicant’s position unless there are incontrovertible reasons to do so.

In this regard, we observe that the arguments put by the applicant are removed from that of the panel. 

In other cases, the applicant has put forward a position that is more favourable to it. For example, there is no clear reason to reject the proposed condition that the BAM Plan include a mortality monitoring program for relevant fauna for the life of the project and adopt the applicant’s preferred condition that the program be run for five years instead. A preferable outcome would be to adopt the panel’s recommendation in first instance and, if, after a number of years, reasons are identified to support ceasing the mortality monitoring program, the applicant may seek to vary the permit at that stage.

These observations also extend to the other recommended conditions which the applicant has made comment on, such as conditions relating to noise levels (condition 10) and traffic management (condition 19).

Strategic planning

It should be noted that since the panel hearing, VicGrid has commenced a strategic land use exercise to inform its Victorian Transmission Plan and associated priority areas for future renewable energy zones, which is scheduled for finalisation in mid-2025.

In its submission to the Mt Fyans Wind Farm planning permit application, Council sought that any decision on this wind farm be delayed until strategic planning is completed and there is further guidance on the assessment of cumulative impacts.

Requiring the applicant to provide the further information recommended by the panel would not only allow the environmental effects of the project to be better understood – it would also have the added advantage of allowing the outcomes of the VicGrid  exercise to be factored into the planning application.

Council appreciates the opportunity to provide a submission at this point in time, and is desirous of continuing collaboration and engagement with the Department moving forward.

Please contact me if you require further information or would like to meet to discuss this submission.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Eversteyn

Chief Executive Officer

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