Turbines bird risk claimed
Contact Energy is prepared to take the risk of building multimillion-dollar turbines at its proposed Waikato wind farm even if they might not be able to operate under consent conditions.
A board of inquiry hearing into the $1 billion Hauauru ma raki project for 180 turbines along Waikato’s isolated west coast is continuing this week at Tuakau.
But the tension evident between Contact’s plans and the Conservation Department which says there is not enough evidence to make a decision on the project has already emerged as one of the pivotal issues for the hearing.
DOC is concerned about the possibility of bird strike, with a lack of information preventing the board from setting conditions to mitigate the problem.
It is concerned that birds such as the South Island pied oystercatcher classified as “at risk” migrate between breeding sites in the South Island and wintering grounds in North Island harbours.
DOC says much more investigation is required on how they might be affected by a wind farm spread along 34 kilometres of coast, and has suggested the board defer a decision on the wind farm until further monitoring of shorebird migration has been completed. But that is unlikely to be concluded until August-September next year, and Contact counsel Trevor Robinson made it clear that a two-year deferral of the project was not practical.
Birds flying into stationary turbines was not the key issue, he said. “It is when the turbine blades are turning.”
His suggestion was that when there was enough information available about the time and location of migratory bird movements, perhaps there could be nominated periods of non-operation of particular turbines.
“Are you saying that your client is prepared to take the risk it might build turbines that it cannot operate?” board chairman Jeffrey Smith asked.
“Yes,” said Mr Robinson, before drawing an analogy with consent conditions which might govern night-time noise hours.
“If Contact chooses to construct something that it does not know it can operate, that is the consent holder’s risk. ”
Further, he said turbines could be retrospectively removed if necessary.
“The risk is not from the location of the turbines … it is from the turning of the blades. It is the operation of the turbines which is the critical issue.”
Contact’s position was that there would be no electricity production while bird information was obtained.
However, the board chairman, Environment Court Judge Jeffrey Allan Smith, said such an approach avoided the question of whether an activity should occur in the first place and addressed only conditions of control.
“It is the `suck and see’ approach, or some call it `bump and go’. But the practicalities are that sustainable management does not allow you to bump the bats and bump the migratory birds without knowing what those effects are in considering whether that is acceptable.”
Judge Smith said the board had to examine whether the wind farm was appropriate in the first place.
“And that, in this case, gets us down to each turbine or the turbine clusters as a whole or the entire project from whoa to go.”
He questioned the appropriateness of such an approach.
“Rather than saying these are the adverse effects and we are going to address these by `x’, you are saying, `Look, we do not actually know what the adverse effects are, but look, we will sort it out later on’,” Judge Smith said.
By Bruce Holloway
The Dominion Post
5 May 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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