June 10, 2008
Australia

Residents petition against wind farms

Residents of Hallett and nearby Mount Bryan in mid-north South Australia have started a petition against the construction of up to four wind farms in the area.

Energy giant AGL is set to open the first of the wind farms this week.

Local resident Felicity Martin initiated the petition which focuses on the mental and physical issues concerned with the developments.

Ms Martin says despite public consultation, there are several issues still to be addressed.

“In Scotland and Wales they’re actually paying for people to go for holidays because of the psychological impacts,” she said.

“People are actually having to walk away from their homes because agents say they cannot sell them and they’ve lost everything.

“If the wind farms were any long-term serious benefit I would strongly support it, but [I will not support] sacrificing humans to keep the dishwashers in Adelaide going.”

An AGL spokesman says the company is working hard to address problems of poor television reception and noise disturbance in the area.

The project manager for the Hallett project, Steven Oswald, says the community’s response has actually been quite positive.

“I’m very surprised there’s been a criticism of lack of community consultation,” he said.

“The development period for one of these projects is quite long and the community consultation for the Hallett stage one project would have occurred about three to four years ago.

“Maybe people have just forgotten that that community consultation did occur.”

ABC North and West SA

10 June 2008


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/06/10/residents-petition-against-wind-farms/