General News
26 April, 2025
LETTER TO THE EDITORI: Windfarm meeting planned
With great urgency I wish to highlight an upcoming local meeting that is of critical importance to the Woomelang community – and indeed the whole district – regarding the health risks of wind turbines.
The Wimmera Mallee Environmental & Agricultural Protection Association Inc (WMEAP Inc) will host the meeting next Monday, April 28, with a 7pm start, at the Warracknabeal Community Centre, Anzac Park.
As many are now aware, a foreign investment company, Cubico Sustainable Investments, is proposing to construct 162 skyscraper-height wind turbines up to 280m tall across the Woomelang-Curyo area.
All for the sole purpose of generating sustainable profits for Cubico.
What may not be as well known is that paddocks less than 3km to the north-west and south of Woomelang are marked for turbines, according to the map made available on Cubico’s website, exposing residents to 35 years of health and environmental risks.
Woomelang’s residents have much reason to be concerned about what a handful of farmers, who have signed away their property rights to Cubico for short-sighted financial gain, are subjecting the community to.
Known health risks include infrasound, flickering shadows, persistent noise pollution, sleep disturbances and toxic BPA plastic shedding from blades.
Cubico is doing as little as possible to tick the 'community consultation' box.
They quite literally 'phoned in' a poorly advertised webinar in late February, which the affected neighbours chose to attend a broadcast of at Curyo Fire Station.
Intimidated by the sight of the 50-strong crowd, the moderators switched off the community’s camera and microphone to shield Cubico’s presenters and heavily filtered the fleeting Q&A time.
Cubico has also divided neighbours into two camps.
Those they will mail correspondence to, and those they won’t.
As such, only some 'priority stakeholder' neighbours were alerted to the existence of the project in February, and only some have been alerted to the mid-June capped-attendance neighbour information sessions at Woomelang.
Yet all neighbours are subject to a 1km buffer zone on each adjoining boundary, restricting their ability to build on and develop their land.
Only in July will Cubico bother to consult the wider community, including Woomelang’s 191 impacted residents.
Many farming neighbours are not taking this social and environmental abuse lying down, with several currently contacting Victorian Minister for Planning, Sonya Kilkenny, requesting that Cubico be required to complete an environmental effects statement.
Immediate concerns include mass wedge-tailed eagle deaths, threats to biodiversity, the risk to the critically endangered plains wanderer and toxic microplastic shedding from blades entering the food supply.
As more and more wind factories are proposed for the district, a major consideration is the compounding man-made climate change that turbines cause through the wake effect, both within and across neighbouring wind factories, greatly affecting wind patterns (and the ability for neighbouring factories to even generate energy due to 'stolen wind'), rainfall, downwind vegetation greenness and raising local temperatures.
Before a single turbine rotation can occur, local vegetation and wildlife habitat must be destroyed to widen country roads to transport the temporary monoliths to site.
We neighbours ask that local community groups, organisations and businesses do not accept any grants or sponsorship from Cubico.
This Trojan horse tactic is used to create the illusion of social licence and is used as 'evidence' of community support for this environmental vandalism.
It also damages the reputation of local groups, organisations and businesses, promoting division, reducing transparency and encouraging conflicts of interest.
What may momentarily benefit your town will come at the long-term expense of Woomelang and the wider farming community.
Several Horsham businesses found this out when they gave passing support to Dooen’s Avonbank Mine via published quotes, only to find out that their friends and customers would lose their farms and homes for close to 40 years and that Horsham would be exposed to constant radioactive dust for the entire life of the mine.
Also, for residents and neighbours, please do not sign any agreements with Cubico, even if Cubico promises to subsidise power bills or provide noise arbitrating trees or infrastructure.
This will lock you into a non-disclosure agreement lasting the life of the factory and prevent you complaining outside of Cubico’s controlled channels.
They will make every effort to buy your silence as quickly and cheaply as possible.
We urge one and all to get on the front foot and attend this meeting to meet people from the wider community who are affected by lines, mines and turbines, and to send a clear message to the disposable energy companies that we won’t concede our communities, agriculture, environment or ecosystem for their financial gain.
– Chris Huttig, Rosebery