HumeLink Snowy Hydro 2 transmission cable project protest by community alliance

The multi billion dollar transmission towers being built as part of the renewable energy project Snowy Hydro 2. are not very green, say concerned community members.

Green energy is being used as an excuse to a “rubber stamp” plans to destroy massive swathes of native forests and habitats by building huge new high voltage power lines from the Snowy Hydro 2 project, concerned community members from Southern NSW say.

Transgrid’s $3.3 billion HumeLink project includes transmission towers as tall as the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons – which will cut a 70-metre-wide, 360km long path through old growth forests, State Forests and working farms.

The proposed path runs through from the Kosciuszko National Park out to Wagga on one side and up to the Southern Highlands on the other route.

It’s the state’s most expensive green energy transmission project but locals say Transgrid and the government have just assumed “no one lives out here”.

Community action group Hume Alliance, made up of landowners, farmers and other community members, are furious about scale of the massive project, particularly on the environment.

From left to right, Ross Smith, Pippa Quilty, Eli Quilty-Campbell, Rebecca Tobin and Ian Robson oppose the major transmission line project set to be built across their properties at Darlow, the Riverina. Source: Supplied

They say the lines should go underground – as is best practice now around the world - otherwise the bushfire hazards, habitat destruction, agricultural and tourism impacts are too high.

“After decades of lobbying for climate change reform, environmentally conscious Australians have been slapped in the face by Transgrid using renewable energy as an excuse to rubber stamp clear-felling of native forests and habitat destruction,” the alliance’s Michael Katz said.

HumeLink project. New high voltage transmission towers will need to be built for 360km as part of the $3.3 billion HumeLink project to connect the power supplied by the renewable Snowy Hydro 2 project. Source: Supplied

“This isn’t green energy. Far from it.”

“Green energy should be about end-to-end delivery of electricity to consumers, not just generation.

“By this measure, the HumeLink Towers overhead proposal is a complete fail.”

Rebecca Tobin’s family are fourth generation farmers in Darlow in the Riverina, and say the bushfire risks in their local areas a huge risk. They already have a 300kV line, built in the 1970s, and face massive clear felling of the property, to make way for the new HumeLink towers in addition to that.

Wagga Wagga Independent MP Dr Joe McGirr. Picture: Dylan Robinson

“Lives are on the line,” she said. “In California they are putting their lines underground because of wildfire risks.”

Wagga Wagga Independent MP Joe McGirr says Wagga Wagga “will be engulfed in powerlines” and believes the 500kV cables should go underground, even if only in some locations.

“If we’re building something that is a once in a lifetime change - and we’ve got 10,000 kilometres of transmission lines scarring our landscape - we have to do it right,” he said.

“Europe‘s going through a whole electrification process and they’re putting it all underground.

“It’s a huge issue. The problem is they assume no one lives out here. People are very worried about all the impacts.”

Transgrid says the cost is prohibitive. It originally estimated it would cost $18.7 billion to put the cable underground, but withdraw that figure that after objections from the community representatives on the steering panel.

It then re-costed the underground option at $11.4 billion, but the community groups still dispute that figure, saying it’s about 50 per cent higher than an independent expert consultant, nor does it take into account the impacts on agriculture, biodiversity and tourism.

“The project involves significant distances and as such the placement of the cables underground is not cost effective,” Transgrid said in a statement. “The project is subject to the approval of the Australian Energy Regulator and Transgrid must satisfy the regulator that the cost of the project does not present an unacceptable burden on electricity consumers.”

The company also said it would require government environmental approvals, and would be running extensive surveys examining ecological and heritage factors.

“In the context of undergrounding, the installation of cables includes a large amount of excavation and would have a significant impact, depending on the sensitivities of any particular area.”