Tarago locals: angry, armed with facts and, therefore, dangerous.
Utterly pointless and universally detested in the communities where they get speared, wind turbines have one real purpose: harvesting subsidies.
Communities that get organised early and fight hard from the get go have a chance of avoiding becoming ‘road-kill’ for renewables rent seekers. However, start bargaining with wind power outfits about setbacks from homes, or other trivial details and your community can expect to be bulldozed, literally and figuratively.
These days, people are armed with facts and fight back against the obsequious gits that mouth platitudes during ‘consultations’ directed at massaging those pesky community ‘concerns’.
Tarago and Mt Fairy is just one such community, nestled on the rolling hills of the southern Tablelands of New South Wales. Community defenders there mounted furious opposition to the threat by Spanish outfit, EPYC to spear 88 of these things into the ranges near Lake Bathurst, Tarago, Mayfield, Boro, Mount Fairy and Manar.
What’s reported below may only be round 1, but it’s a monumental victory worth celebrating by all involved in winning it.
Jupiter Wind Farm rejected by Department of Planning and Environment
Goulburn Post
David Cole
27 February 2018
In a major ‘blow’ for the proponents but a win for many in the community, the Jupiter Wind Farm has been rejected by the Department of Planning and Environment.
It still has to go to the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) for the final say, but the department has recommended that approval of the project should be refused.
Director of Resource and Energy Assessments Mike Young said the department thoroughly assessed EPYC’s application to build a wind farm with 54 turbines near Tarago, including extensive community consultation.
“We considered the application on its merits, paying particular attention to the local context and community,” Mr Young said.
“We acknowledge that the company amended the plans and removed 34 wind turbines in response to community feedback.
“However, our assessment has found that the site and surrounds are fundamentally unsuitable for a large-scale wind farm.”
Mr Young said the wind farm proposal would have unacceptable visual impacts on almost half of the 110 homes located near the project.
“The proposal is inconsistent with local planning controls, which classify a third of the proposed site as an environmental management zone,” Mr Young said.
“The department received 400 objections from the local community and interest groups during the exhibition period.”
He said both Queanbeyan-Palerang and Goulburn Mulwaree Councils had lodged submissions that were also strongly opposed to the wind farm.
Residents against Jupiter Wind Farm spokeseperson Dr Michael Crawford welcomed the news, but said the PAC still has to make the final decision.
“The community is happy with the decision but it is not the end of it – the PAC will make the final decision,” Dr Crawford said.
“The department has laid out a strong case. They and the community have been telling EPYC that the area is not appropriate for a wind farm for years, but they refused to listen.
“As a consequence for four years people in this community have been stressed about how their lifestyle may be impacted
Dr Crawford said people had sold up their properties and lost money as a consequence of the proposed wind farm.
“We hope the PAC will make the same decision as the department,” he said.
“They have caused anguish in the community. They have divided the community. We are happy with the department but angry with those who have forced this on the community unnecessarily.”
Australian Wind Alliance national coordinator Andrew Bray acknowledged the importance of respecting community consultation.
“There are plenty of examples Australia-wide of wind power projects having long-lasting and beneficial impacts for local communities – both financially and socially. However, it is critical that these projects have effective and transparent community engagement from the start to ensure the project delivers good outcomes for everyone,” he said.
“In this instance, that crucial engagement did not happen and this threatened to negatively affect community views not just on this project, but on wind power generally.
“We were concerned about this so we felt it was important to speak out in support of the community and object to the project.”
The PAC will hold a public meeting at the Carrington Inn, Bungendore from 9am on March 21 to review the department’s assessment before making its final decision.
They have also commissioned an independent expert to provide advice about the wind farm’s potential visual impacts.
An EPYC spokesperson said: “the department’s decision is disappointing. We are still reading the documents and will be reviewing our options accordingly.”
Goulburn Post
Local MP, Angus Taylor helps organise the (soon-to-be) victors.
Andrew Bray has, hitherto, occupied the position of ‘high priest’ among Australia’s dwindling wind cult. So there has to be some very compelling reason for him turning on his beloved?
Andrew might have finally picked up on the fact that people in rural communities are not as naïve or gullible as he and his cronies would like to believe.
Why should people watch their lives and livelihoods destroyed all for the sake of a meaningless power source which cannot exist without massive and endless subsidies?
Ending up with a worthless and uninhabitable home; watching the value of a life’s work slashed to a pittance; all the while knowing that the wind industry has permeated and corrupted every level of government and every institution that ought to act to protect the Australian voting public, rather than the interests of Spanish wind power investors – secures a sense of seething rage amongst the wind industry’s real and potential victims.
Andrew Bray’s conversion is one that recognises that a tactical retreat is better than a strategic slaughter. (Although we did get a tip that either Bray or someone close to him has property close to the proposed project that would have been rendered worthless if the proposal ever got off the ground. Which is probably a better explanation for Bray’s sudden about face.)
The tightknit community opposing the Jupiter proposal is led by a group of heavy-hitters, with political connections to people like local Federal Member, Angus Taylor.
Well disciplined and well-organised, this group presents a threat not only to the Jupiter proposal, but also represents an existential threat to the wind industry and the renewables rort, as a whole.
Plenty of uprisings started out small and ended up as unstoppable juggernauts. The dogged and determined folk from Tarago and Mt Fairy got together as a fast-growing group of unlikely rebels but, now that they’ve tasted victory, the Spanish wind power outfit surely has a full-blown revolt on its hands.
About stopthesethings
STOP THESE THINGS 
When will Turnbuck and Frypan a) get the message, and b) do something about this scam?
Right now Charles Ortel a financial investigator in the U.S. is exposing some very interesting corruption connections between the Clinton Foundation and Australia. He’s ‘closing in’ on this massive global corruption. I’ll provide the link to Jason Goodman’s ‘Crowd Source the Truth’ which now has more than 60 hours of Charles Ortel’s work in the archives.
Here’s the link to Jason Goodman’s ‘Crowd Source the Truth’ re: corruption linked to Australia: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Cl9QaRtuW9CNjP7pP4BBQ
The lead article in the latest Australian edition of “The Spectator” magazine (10 Mar 2018) has a penetrating article about the devastating effects of the “Renewables” scam.
If only more of the major media outlets were this honest and actually complied with their journalistic responsibilities by properly publicising the true nature of this disgraceful fraud – which is wiping out Australia’s competitive advantage, driving enterprises out of business, killing-off tens of thousands jobs, and transferring the meagre wealth of Australia’s less well-off into the pockets of wealthy “investors” – many of them overseas corporations with zero loyalty to the people of Australia or the country’s future. They are here only to harvest the subsidies extracted from the pockets of the poor. The situation really does stink – and so do the politicians who are making this happen. A short extract from the Spectator article follows:
“As power prices soar, everyday Mums and Dads along with the poor and the elderly – Mr Howard’s famed and now long-forgotten battlers – are having their life savings and lifestyles plundered by greedy energy providers. These providers, whilst disingenuously claiming they are ‘saving the planet’ by investing in renewables, are simply taking full advantage of the ludicrous volatility in electricity prices brought on by the twin climate change ideological prescriptions of renewables targets and subsidies. The Herald-Sun reported last week that some struggling families have energy debts of over $25,000. This is a disgrace. That current energy policies are a ‘mess’ is no excuse. ‘Mess’ is another weasel-word and smokescreen conveniently used by the Left to disguise the real culprit – climate change alarmism and deception. A conservative politician of the calibre of John Howard would long ago have abandoned any ideological ‘commitments’ and focussed his or her firepower on genuinely assisting such families not by handing out more and more subsidies or pay-outs but by putting on hold our so-called international obligations under the Paris Agreement. (The original Agreement was voluntary, so the word …”
There is not one single reason to ever approve a wind farm whether its the cost to consumers, health,saving GHG emissions, saving the environment or the transference of money from the poor to the rich, property values, noise or any other reason – the department should knock them all back.
The comment re Bray or ‘someone close’ having propery interests may have some resonance just as it may be that cunning Infigen itself has some influence too. There is only so much spark that can be put into a 330 kv line and Infigen has always had its eye to adding three hundred plus more turbines in the Lake George basin area. Jupiter output would have impinged on this ‘initiative’.
Yes William, we can be assured that Andrew Bray has the well being of likely “wind receptors” foremost in his thoughts, yeah right….
“This is a blatant attempt by the Abbott government to use taxpayer cash to appoint a propaganda agent for the anti-wind brigade,” said Andrew Bray, coordinator of the Australian Wind Alliance regarding the Australian Wind farm commissioner.
Yeah, and what a toothless lapdog that “fearless” wind farm commissioner has proved to be, your classic MIA.
Not that many expected anything different, but nonetheless it shows that the wind rent seekers will scream blue murder whenever there is even the slightest hint of opposition to their cosy, government approved Ponzi scheme.
Yes he says how all the ministers. Premier liases with him but their union backers get what they want. Like 1 or 2 year highpaid construction jobs are better than a lifetime of powerstation work.