LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Submissions split on Otago windfarm 

Credit:  Ian Telfer, Otago reporter | Radio New Zealand | 2 March | www.radionz.co.nz ~~

Submissions on an Otago community’s plan to put up its own windfarm are evenly split for and against.

Blueskin Bay near Dunedin would be the first in New Zealand to put up a cluster of three wind turbines and make 1000 homes self-sufficient in electricity.

After seven years of work and countless public meetings, the project’s resource consent application with the Dunedin City Council attracted 140 submissions.

One-half object, questioning the project’s business model, consultation process and technical reports, and reflecting worries about the noise, look, potential for land slip and light pollution at night.

A nationally-recognised bird illustrator, Derek Onley, who lives at Blueskin Bay, said the environmental impact studies were weak, leaving open serious bird-strike effects on wading birds.

A nearby resident, Rosemary McBryde, questions the project’s value.

She said the electricity generated would just be sold to a wholesaler, and go into the wider grid, so would make no difference to the community’s own power needs.

She said the project was draining the community’s energy, and it would be better spent helping people learn how to generate their own power at home.

But the project’s supporters say it is a visionary, pioneering effort, and will be a New Zealand model for self-sufficiency.

Green Party MP Gareth Hughes said Dunedin had not had an energy project in 100 years, and this one would produce energy close to where it was used, and would grow local jobs.

The project’s manager Scott Willis said the trust was not deterred at all because 50 percent support was a good result for any new wind farm.

Mr Willis said he was confident the project would win over its opponents and ultimately the hearing panel, and that it would get the green light because it was such a low-impact development with so many environmental gains.

Resource consent hearings are planned for May.

Source:  Ian Telfer, Otago reporter | Radio New Zealand | 2 March | www.radionz.co.nz

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon