Woohoo: big new windfarm for NSW… and Vic?

4 September 2013 – Well done NSW. Bad look Victoria.

A major $200 million wind farm by Infigen Energy at Bodangora, near Dubbo in central NSW, was approved by the state’s Planning Assessment Commission on Monday with anti wind farm concerns on health ground dismissed in a ruling that will boost the industry.

In great news that makes the anti wind farm stance in Victoria and other places look reactionary and misplaced the commission dismissed community concerns that noise from the turbines would affect their health, Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday

The commission said NSW Health “was very clear in its advice” that “there is no published scientific evidence to link wind turbines with adverse health effects”, the report said.

While NSW Health found that noise from the turbines “may cause some disturbance” to those living within 700 metres of the towers, it found the planned two-kilometre buffer zone to be “highly conservative” and “a very precautionary approach”.

A professor of public health at the University of Sydney Simon Chapman said the report would “add to almost 20 other official reports, such as from the Victorian government in May, that examined wind farms and health, he said.

“All of them are consistent in saying that there is no good evidence that wind turbines directly cause health effects,” Professor Chapman said.

Infigen said another large wind farm at Flyers Creek, south of Orange, and projects elsewhere, looked more positive.

Host farms at Bodangora will receive about $10,000 a year from each turbine, and $85,000 will flow to the local community, the report said.

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