March 28, 2008
Australia
Australia
More than 200 vehicles could pass along regional roads each day during the construction phase of a wind farm that is proposed to be built on the ranges that rise around the Mundi Mundi Plains.
The secretary of the Silverton Village Committee, Albert Woodroffe, says this would be a big increase in the number of cars, trucks and buses using the roads during the first 18 months of the development.
Mr Woodroffe says extra traffic could extended over five years as the second and third phases go ahead.
He says concerns about the increased traffic were raised with the wind farm developers Epuron at its meeting on Wednesday night.
“We wanted to ask them what the tourism impacts are going to be for the town and how this action is going to affect commute times for people to travel into Broken Hill for work every day, and alternatively people coming out, bus operators … turnaround times, how they’re going to be affected by the low loaders and the like,” he said.
Silverton Resident Helen Murray says she is disappointed with Epuron’s response to the questions she posed at Wednesday’s meeting.
Ms Murray says while she is not completely satisfied with Epuron’s plans for the wind farm, she has come to accept that the development is likely to occur.
But she says her major concern is the noise of the turbines, which cause low frequency vibrations that can lead to health problems.
Ms Murray says she asked if Epuron was going to use turbine blades which cut out the noise that causes the vibrations.
“The response was that they will be using the most up-to-date technology and I said, well that doesn’t really give me any encouragement because there’s also some evidence to say a lot of recently built wind farms are using up-to-date technology but they’re still still experience sound problems,” she said.
28 March 2008
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/03/28/residents-air-wind-farm-traffic-concerns/