Star Weekly is taking a look back at 2023. Here’s one of our biggest stories from last year.
A Moorabool councillor has called the current plan for the Western Renewables Link (WRL) “disgusting” after visiting a Darley property that could have overhead transmission lines built within metres from the owners’ house.
The WRL is a proposed 190km overhead high-voltage electricity transmission line that will carry renewable energy from Bulgana in western Victoria to Sydenham in Melbourne’s north-west, and requires the acquisition of an easement corridor 100 metres wide along the path of the proposed transmission line.
Steve and Holly Harper’s Swans Road residence is in the proposed path of the easement corridor, and runs one kilometre from east to west with a width of 100-200 metres.
Mr Harper has calculated that the plan will require the state government to acquire 40 per cent of their property to install transmission lines and 80 metre-high towers within metres of their house.
The Harpers said with the proposed easement they’re set to lose their orchard, machine shed, water tanks including fire tank, barn, workshop, front yard, driveway, and flat paddocks.
“It will essentially make our entire property unliveable and our business unviable,” Mr Harper said.
Ms Harper added their property is home to an estimated 2000 native trees she said are more than 200 years old, and form part of the Myrniong Bio link, which could all be put at risk.
“We have saved our whole lives to be able to buy this property and live a certain lifestyle, and we had a whole plan for our future… We can’t replicate what we’ve done here. Our whole lifestyle will be gone,” Ms Harper said.
Moorabool councillor Tonia Dudzik raised the issue at a council meeting on Wednesday, April 5 to ask what council can do about the matter.
“I’d just like to make the point of how very close those power lines are to people’s houses… this is actually against our policy that we have created,” she said.
“I just don’t comprehend how this can be allowed.”
Council’s High Voltage Transmission Line Setback Policy states a transmission line that is 500kV or greater should have a setback distance of 300 metres from residences, measured from the edge of the easement.
Moorabool council chief executive Derek Madden said Council had been advocating since 2021 for the WRL to implement setback distances in line with the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner’s recommendations.
“Council would like to again strongly encourage decision makers to listen to the justifiable concerns of impacted landholders and align setback distances with the Commissioner’s recommendations,“ he said.
An Ausnet spokesperson said the WRL project team had been “working closely with landholders to identify easement micro-siting opportunities to mitigate the impacts on properties, including how they function as a business“.
“The impact of easements will be included in the Environmental Effects Statements which is expected to be submitted later this year. The EES process will consider Federal, State and local legislation and policy and must represent all of the environmental, social and economic potential impacts of the project,“ they said.
The state government was contacted for comment.
