June 24, 2013
Australia

Hydro to pursue wind farm study

By CALLA WAHLQUIST | June 24, 2013 | www.examiner.com.au

Hydro Tasmania will approach landowners on King Island to find locations for 200 wind turbines after the board unanimously voted to proceed to a feasibility study.

The board met today to discuss the results of a community survey, which returned a 58.8 per cent support for proceeding to the next stage.

Opponents of the project have said that it needed 60 per cent support to proceed, and had been calling to raise that barrier to 75 per cent.

Hydro Tasmania director of corporate services Andrew Catchpole said the company had only committed to achieving broad community support before proceeding with the study.

“I know some have implied that the figure of 60 is a number that will determine if the project goes ahead or not,” Mr Catchmole said.

“However, we have always said that 60 per cent would be a good indication of broad community support.

“We got 59 per cent and that is a very good result.”

Mr Catchmole said the feasibility study would be staged to deal with core community concerns first, such as the location of the turbines, potential health risks and impact on the King Island brand.

He said the company would allow consultation on the location of the turbines and would survey residents again before proceeding with a development application.

However he would not say if the survey would be through a formal vote and would not say what support would be required for the proposal to go into development.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/06/24/hydro-to-pursue-wind-farm-study/