Six weeks to respond to 1,900-page Draft EIS outrageous
By Save Eumundi Team • Apr 15th, 2009 • Category: PAGE media releasesPAGE MEDIA RELEASE
Residents tasked with responding to a 1900-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) regarding high voltage powerlines are outraged by the ludicrous deadline imposed by Powerlink, the project proponent.
Powerlines Action Group Eumundi (PAGE) spokesperson Dr John Cronin said the group was angry at being refused an extension last week, despite the obvious issues involved in responding to a document of such immense proportions.
“To download the document, it would take a very patient person an estimated 17 hours to save the entire document, complete with appendices, via a standard dial-up connection,” Dr Cronin said.
“Of course, you could request a USB or CD version, but you have to allow time to receive it, therefore exhausting a sizeable portion of the six-week timeframe enforced.
“And, if you have no computer, Powerlink’s attitude is ‘bad luck, pay $250 and we’ll send you a hardcopy or go to a public library’.
“In rejecting several landholders’ requests for a hard copy, commissioned consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) Australia themselves validated the fee charged due to ‘… the detail contained in the Draft EIS and the resulting size of the document’.
“It just goes to show that this whole process is totally absurd and the steam-rolling tactics deployed are in direct contrast to the Bligh Government’s own principles for fairness in community consultation.”
Dr Cronin said the enormity of responding to the Draft EIS for the 275 kV Woolooga to Cooroy South Transmission Line and Cooroy South Substation Project was made all the more difficult due to a direct clash with the Easter break.
“We are a community of working families who cannot drop everything to respond to such a complex document – a document which has taken an army of specialists over 10 months to create,” he said.
“Libraries are closed, families are on holidays planned many months in advance – Powerlink couldn’t have planned it any more inappropriately.”
Powerlink has ignored residents affected by a new easement proposed for Eerwah Vale and Ridgewood by hosting public EIS workshops in Gympie and Federal, and not in Eumundi.
Members of PAGE met last night (13 April) and resolved to propose its own community workshop to offer assistance to affected landholders in responding to the Draft EIS, regardless of where they live.
To register your interest in attending the proposed workshop, email contact@saveeumundi.org or phone Jack on 5442 8777.
Details of the free workshop will be made available in the near future, depending on the level of interest received.
PAGE is a not-for-profit community organisation committed to promoting sustainable ways to meet Queensland’s future energy needs.
For more information on the alternatives and the campaign to date, visit PAGE’s website http://www.saveeumundi.org for more information.
Ends
Media contact: Dr John Cronin on 0414 468 852
Note to editors:
Link to copy of PB’s letter of refusal regarding an extension
Organisation: Powerlines Action Group Eumundi (PAGE)
Date: 15 April 2009
Media Contact: Dr John Cronin
Email: contact@saveeumundi.org
Save Eumundi Team is a group of people who are keen to see our environment protected and insisting that the Queensland State Government and its agencies (like Powerlink) consider viable alternatives rather than the business as usual approach to electricity generation and transmission.
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