Colleagues,
I am not so sure the wildlife values were not a major factor. Members of the
Victorian Malleefowl Recovery Group played a pivotal role in the hearings -
our secretary Ann Stokie & scientific adviser Dr Joe Benshemesh spent
several days making submissions on behalf of the work our group has done
(including longitudinal monitoring of malleefowl breeding success in
monitoring grids within a 10-km radius, in Hattah and Murray Sunset NPs over
more than a decade.)
Alec Hawtin, BOCA and VMRG member found the emu-wrens in the area within 24
hours of the waste facility being announced. In addition to regent parrots,
malleefowl and other threatened species, this one finding should have, and
ultimately did put paid to the project.
Proposals for a solar power station in NW Victoria that I have seen have
been for a solar thermal type, where parabolic mirrors are used to heat
water-filled pipes to generated steam and drive turbines, rather than
photoelectric arrays like we put on our roofs. One design requires a
Rialto-type tower. You couldn't put a plant like this into Nowingi without
widespread land clearing, and there ought to be enough cleared and flogged
out farmland to be turned over to a facility like this, without clearing
virgin mallee that has national park on 3 sides and is home to one of our
most-endangered bird species...
EOMR (End Of Mini Rant... :-)
Ross Macfarlane
|
