The power station EIS is out

I don’t think Zed should stand out of the vote.

He went to the election saying ‘no powerstation in this location’.

Just because he lives in Macarthur doens’t mean he can’t vote on this issue – it isn’t as if he has hidden the fact he is a local. And the issue relates to lots of tuggers and farrer, isaacs etc – should all deep south pollies stand aside?

miz; i’m actually db cooper (wikipedia me)
and i heard mackay’s phone call and agreed with him.

on your point about the 4000 signatures; i saw that petition and i’m not suprised it got a few signatures. i will say i thought it misleading and that it distorted the facts, not that i blame CPR for this, just that they are a lobby group and the information coming from them is meant to argue the case against the power station and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. (same as that from mr mackay) I still think this is a small nimby issue for the reasons outlined above. look at what the voters did, not what they said.

on the compensation point i think TRE should get some, they acted in good faith, put a lot of thier money into the project and face having it rejected or no good reason. stanhope has a point in regards to this (besides he might just be playing the game, he only needs one more vote to get it through (zed has a conflict of interest and should abstain making it 9-7 as things currently stand)

on your point about some secret deal i hope you have some evidence about that and aren’t just making wild accusations without a shred of evidence. the fact that the libs went on a wild fishing expedition on the matter before the election and came up with zilch says a lot i think.

and taking pot shots at the HIA and EIS because they didn’t say what you wanted them too is a bit silly. the fact that the only public figure pushing about the steering commiteee thing is bloke who had the cushy job chairing it says a lot aswell.

Caf, my tongue was firmly in my cheek! (Given the points set out neatly in very similar vein, indeed almost word for word, to John Mackay’s phone call to 666 yesterday (Alex Sloan’s program). But fair call. I will refrain in future.

Check your facts when dealing with DAs, ACTPLA, and any government agency.

‘Common sense’ and ‘bureaucracy’ only occasionally align.

IIRC, it is in the district of Tuggeranong, in a non-suburban space, which bears no locality name.
It is next to Hume, and near Macarthur\Symonston.

This business of accusing other posters of being well-known real life people is rubbish. Is it that hard to believe that other people have a different opinion from yours, without them having some kind of vested interest?

Tom tom, are you John Mackay?

Not sure Thumper – it was mentioned at a meeting (by someone from ACTEWAGL I think) and may be referred to in some early docs. I will see if I can find it.

I checked the link you provided (cool link!) – Hume stops at Long Gully Road on that side of the Monaro Hwy. (I actually thought the land they want to build on was reserve! It’s so lovely and rural. It would be such a shame to put a horrid belching chimney-ified thing there.)

The DA now refers to it as being in the District of Tuggeranong.

It certianly isn’t in the industrial area commonly known as Hume to ACT residents. Bit like calling namadgi ‘canberra’.

I read in the paper that the project meets health air standards for ‘broadacre’ developments, which are less stringent than residential standards.

But is that appropriate for a dvpt like this which is only 600m from residential areas?

Miz I also suspect at least a verbal deal with high levels of ACT govt. Why else is Stanphope virtually pushing for compensation for TRE, when as guardian of our economy he should be arguing strongly against compensation for them.

thumper is dead on. it is in hume; the myth is that its not. its just on the bit of hume thats close to macarthur. saying its in macarthur is like suggesting parts of waniassa are acutally monash because they are closer to monash then other bits of waniassa.

and arguing about what side of an arbitrarilly drawn line on a map it is sort of misses the point of it all.

And it’s not a nimby issue either, given there is one also planned for macgregor. There are over 4,000 signatures on the petition against the location. NOT the project, the Location. No one would want this in their area. I don’t care how convenient it is.

I still reckon there has been a deal done/promises made high up and that’s why they are so incredibly desperate (both ALP and TRE) to keep this location, given its convenience. Otherwise, it will come out in the compo claim. They are sure to have factored in the closeness to pipelines/substation and don’t want to pay like others have to.

On 666 this morning, Andrew Campbell from TRE came close to saying how they would be claiming compo for pipelines/electricity if they had to move further away from the substation/connections, then he kind of did a verbal double-take and backed off from the $100s of millions to the $10s of millions. Oops – nearly gave the game away!

And housebound I agree about the HIA having a lot of gaps as info was not available/not provided. They knew it would pass the shonky one but would not pass the steering group so they disbanded it.

It isn’t in Hume. Saying it is you are perpetuating the myth that started this whole mess.

oh and theres an error in my numbers on point 6.) i didn’t weight molonglo higher than brindbella or ginninderra even though it has more voters. the corrected figures would just lead to a higher number for the whole of canberra vote so it doesn’t affect my argument.

it is in hume.

and i do sort of agree with whatsup about the breaking of promises thing, i just think on a cost/benefit basis leeting it through would be the smarter call, i’m happy to concede there might be other points of view on that.

and jb talking points? its not as if theres some group email going around (i’d cc you if there was), my argument is common sense as i see it.

FFS, it’s not in HUME!

tom tom: Another fine piece of Labor propaganda.

The Greens and Liberals made promises pre-election to support the data center in another location. Is breaking election promises so soon setting a good precedent ? It would look great for Labor and give them some easy points to score.

I’m certainly admiring the discipline of the pro-lobby’s talking points.

Given the perpetual silence of the opposition I imagine it will carry the day eventually.

i think the data centre should go ahead in the hume location and i think this for these reasons

1.) there are politically smart reasons for the greens and libs to allow it; eg the liberals have been unable to acheive anything for their core voters in the business community for the last four years, do they really want their first decsion to be something that goes against what their base wants? and in the case of the greens if they are serious about being a major party in canberra the surely this is an issue where they can show the pragmatism necessary for government.

2.)the data centre passed the EIS and the HIA. there is no logical reason to oppose the development on health or enivronmental grounds.

3.) blocking the development will set a poor precedent for how this assembly relates to ACTPLA. for example if my nieghbour wants to build a new shed which he really needs for work and which meets every critera set by ACTPLA but i dont like it and i can get the ear of brendan smyth there is now a precedent for blocking the sheds construction.

4.) blocking the development sets a bad precedent for how this assembly will relate to business; blocking a development when TRE (the developers) have acted in good faith, invested a lot of money in and jumped through every hoop they’ve been given will cause future developers to look elsewhere and i think that when the economy is slowing putting a ‘closed for buisness’ sign on canberra is a very stupid idea.

5.) the project will bring a lot to the local economy; front page of the canberra times today says 337 staff and 18 million bucks a year.

6.) i dont think there is widespread community support for blocking the data centre; in fact i could argue the opposite, note for instance that of the data centres two biggest detractors Pratt and Smyth one lost his seat and the other saw his vote almost halved, and in the case of the greens note that the fadden booth (the nearest booth to the pwoerstation) produced worse results for them then their average (14.6 of first prefs in fadden as opposed to 15.233 across canberra as a whole.)

7.) pandering to nimby’s sets a bad bad bad precedent.

8.) and most importantly i really, REALLY want to see steve pratt lie down in front of the bulldozers.

The HIA is also available:
http://www.health.act.gov.au/c/health?a=sp&pid=1226895560

There’s enough instances of ‘we weren’t given the information’ to really raise anyone’s suspicions.

(the link was posted elsewhere, but here might be more useful to anyone following this thread)

I hope the Greens are noting the lenient and inadequate criteria of this EIS. So it passes. but it is still not OK in that location. Practically anything could pass under the old system.

It’s scandalous in itself that the consortium’s scaled down, massively altered development was let through as a supposed ‘amendment’ instead of a new DA, so the new criteria would not apply.

Andrew Barr (Minister for Planning) has come out today in the CT making the claim that all the problems associated with the data centre/power station are the fault of the old planning systm, which no longer applies. If we all just gave the new planning system a chance, then it will all be ok.

That’s all well and good, but I have been told that the data centre/power station DA was lodged under the old planning system and not the new, and so project will be assessed under the requirements of the old system. This affects how the EIS is assessed (the old system’s EIS requirements were apparantly less stringent).

If all this is true, it means the Minister could have been clearer about his planning system reforms in this instance.

I can’t understand people prefering coal power stations to gas ones, or windmills.

Can I have the new power station next door to me, please? It will enable me to get good, clean, reliable power, reducing my carbon pollution dramatically. It will produce the same gases as my gas stove – carbon dioxide and water. And less CO2 than the coal power station that I currently rely on.

If I can’t have a gas power station, I insist on having a windmill – wind generator, please, right next door to me. They look so graceful.

I guess the question is whether the air quality (while appearing bad to the eye) is better or worse than with the gas powered heating emissions that get exhausted. I really don’t know the answer to this. Anyone have any thoughts?

People have to heat their homes somehow.

It doesn’t change the fact that the Tuggeranong Valley is known to have bad air quality in winter due to being a valley, and pollution hanging around for longer than elsewhere.

Wood fired data centres?
Proto-Steampunk?

Caf raises an interesting point!

sepi: Doesn’t the government rebate encourage replacing those wood fires with gas heaters? You know, the same gas the power turbines would be running on? (I’m reasonably sure they weren’t planning a wood-fired power station…)

Thankfully it’s dead in the water now with the Greens and Libs dead set against it. An EIS is not normally worth the paper it’s written on and this just proves the point.

I know – the govt has a rebate to get rid of wood fires from the Tuggers area because smoke sits in the valley affecting air quality, but for some reason power plant fumes won’t matter.

Nice to know they are worried for the poor planes though…

I note that planes are of more concern than residents. The air quality section of the EIS says that the pollutant plume will get ‘dispersed’ over the Tuggeranong valley (south and west of the data centre site) through the afternoon and overnight. This apparently is a ‘good thing’, as planes on the flight path are not affected. Gee, thanks.

And no mention of the inversion layer phenomenon, as far as I can tell.

Nope – still can’t find any information on the water use. If anyone spots it can you let me know?….

And if it’s not there then surely that would make the whole document a joke. How can any EIS be done without clearly spelling out the water implications?

The recommendations aka ‘mitigation measures’ at:
http://ctceis.com.au/document/show/143

(ABC and CT don’t always do a good job of reading through these things themselves, but seem to prefer to regurgitate spin and counterspin)

I was surprised to read that this independent EIS made claims like this:
Environmental mitigation measures (safeguards) outlined in this document would be incorporated into the detailed design phase of the project and as part of its construction and operation. These safeguards would minimise any potential adverse impacts arising from the proposed works on the surrounding environment.

‘Would’ suggests that they aren’t too sure. More appropriate would be ‘will’, to justify GHD’s confidence in how clean and green this project is, or ‘should’ to show it really is a recommendation rather than a mere hope.

This is my personal favourite:
The following mitigation measures would be implemented as required by the ACT Heritage Act:
– Any place or object of heritage significance identified during the construction period should be notified to the ACT Heritage Council and professional advice sought. In such instances, work in the vicinity of the site would cease until such a time that appropriate steps can be taken to ensure the heritage values are maintained; and
– The contractor would be made aware of the nearby heritage items particularly Callum Brae, which is in the vicinity of the proposed gas pipeline corridor.

I hope they didn’t pay too much to have the requirements of the Heritage Act restated to them.

And after the short native veg chapter saying there weren’t any tree hollows because the trees weren’t old enough (http://ctceis.com.au/document/show/86), they say that:
Removal of any hollow bearing trees should be conducted outside the breeding season of arboreal species, bats and other fauna (breeding generally August to January);

ABC says “the EIS says homes in some proposed residential areas might be able to see the facility but notes that the surrounding area has been identified for future industrial development so the project would not be an isolated development.”

But this is even more reason why the buffer broadacre land area there should remain untouched and undeveloped. How rude to say that because there will be more industry nearby, you should stop complaining about the one just over your back fence!

Don’t forget, this EIS has been severely constrained by the fact that they eliminated the HIA (which was to explore polluting particles of differing sizes and health impacts).

Canberrans who currently live near reserves and/or broadacre (which they might incorrectly think is reserve, as many locals here did) should be afraid right about now. While I am expecting that the development will not be able to go ahead for a considerable amount of time due to legal proceedings, this EIS says a lot about the ‘bush capital’ – well, the one Stanhope THINKS we live in – it says, let’s sign away our amenity for the bucks. Just another aspect of ‘selling off the furniture’.

I take back the ‘you’ll never see it’ accusation and apologise now.

It’s a stock-standard, comprehensive EIS (no surprise there). But AG’s comment made me look for the water use impacts, and I couldn’t find them.

Maybe I missed it, but how much water will this facility use and how much will be recycled/non-potable? The executive summary is so superficial it is not worth the few minutes it would take to read it. The conclusions have a lot more.

There’s also a lot of typos, but that’s probably because of consultants not reading their own work under pressure of time.

I can find lots about why the project is needed and how good it will be for the ACT economy. Socio-economic impacts are a valid component of an EIS if you define the environment to include people. But the purpose of an EIS is to counterbalance the emphasis put on socio-ECONOMIC benefits by governments wanting to push a particular project. While the content might be accurate, and a consideration of the impact on property values was probably needed, the claims about employment etc that sound very similar to government spin won’t help the apperance of this being an objective assessment. Don’t laugh – it’s meant to be objective.

The most likely enironment impact – on the local native plants/animals – appears to be a non-issue because it is a weed-infested patch of horse paddack, with a few old trees that would offer shade to the local kangaroos, if the beasties jumped the fences put in to protect the trees from horse-damage.

The actual EIS document is tucked away here:
http://ctceis.com.au/document/index/1

Interestingly the aborted HIA process has not fed in to the EIS as was originally indicated would occur:

From Section 17 Socio-economic assessment:

Separate consideration of potential health impacts has been requested and undertaken by the ACT Government (ACT Health) in the form a Health Impact Assessment (HIA). At the time of writing this chapter, the HIA has not been finalised and has not been made available to GHD.

Relevant matters considered in the HIA and matters advised by ACT Health have been considered in this EIS. The Minister for Planning nevertheless has the power to consider the EIS and the HIA may be referred to the Minister for additional consideration in parallel with the EIS. GHD has reviewed submissions made by the general public, Australian Institute of Architects (Canberra Chapter) and the community based organisation Canberrans for Power Station Relocation Inc that responded to both the HIA consultation process and the original and altered development application and preliminary assessment.

And on page 156:

A separate health impact assessment has been conducted on the CTC project by the Department of Health; the findings of this assessment were not available as this EIS was being prepared. They will be taken into account separately by the Minister in his/her evaluation of this assessment.

So the relevant minister(s) are going to be making decisions on the EIS in relation to a separate HIA report that doesn’t exist because they aborted the process in the first place. The whole process just gets more farcical the more it goes on!

Skidbladnir: Check out the table of contents of the EIS – it includes chapters ranging from “Flora and fauna” through “Indigenous heritage”, “Air quality” and “Hazards, risks and public safety” through to such prosaic issues as “Traffic, access and parking”.

The website is associated with this mob.

So much for those conspiracy theories that the EIS would be buried…

“The CTC will have minimal impact on the existing power grid, as it will be powered primarily by the co-generation facility.”

This is completely different to what was proposed and told directly to me at two of the community information meetings. We were told that the gas generated power would only be used during times of peak load – and that normal grid power would be used at all other times. The gas would also be used as the UPS during black outs etc…

Also – no mention of the water use for the power plant – if we can find water for this (and footy grounds at gaols) then we can find water for our community ovals.

Wierd.
Even though the EIS was crafted by GHD at the request of the Minister, they’ve subcontracted out the domain, content, and hosting arrangements for the site to a sole trader, who seems to be best known to Google for his cricket performance.

Whois response for ctceis.com.au:

Domain Name: ctceis.com.au
Last Modified: 14-Nov-2008 06:25:57 UTC
Registrar ID: Aust Domains
Registrar Name: Aust Domains
Status: ok
Registrant: REDDY, KARTHIK
Registrant ID: ABN 97256973803
Eligibility Type: Sole Trader
Eligibility Name: thinksys
Eligibility ID: ABN 97256973803
Registrant Contact Name: Karthik Reddy
Registrant Contact Email: karthik@thinksys.com.au
Tech Contact Name: Karthik Reddy

But that ABN was originally registered to a Karthik Guddireddigari, anyone with the time or inclination want to find out more about him?

So, do we actually get a Health Impact Statement, or do we only care about the impact on native grasses?