INFRASTRUCTURE OF THIS SCALE PRESENTS AN ELEVATED RISK OF FIRE IN A TIME OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Projects that create known risks to the environment, local lives and properties is culpable negligence.  Yet that’s exactly what UPC-TasNetworks transmission line does to the Loongana Valley. 

UPC-TasNetworks proposed 60-90m-wide easement route cuts through our entire valley from west to east replacing native forest and timber plantations with permanently cleared land – over 90 football fields in just the valley section alone. 

Cleared easements wreck havoc on wet forests and create many impacts through Edge Effect. TasNetworks cannot simply separate these impacts and box tick a few with mitigation and assurances, they are all connected and every resident will be impacted leaving a trail of inter-generational consquences:-

• Weeds: introduction of new weeds during construction.
• Weeds: spreading into waterways and into the River Leven catchment.
• Weeds: labour and costs to control borne by landholders, timber plantation managers and council
• Wind, weeds, erosion: causing degradation of habitat affecting biodiversity
• Erosion & herbicides polluting waterways and personal water sources
• Erosion entering waterways and impacting habitat for Giant Freshwater Crayfish
• Erosion & herbicides polluting Karst and impacting Cave fauna, some only found in Loongana
• Increase of predator behaviour on easement edges affecting ecology, cats in particular will thrive.
• Degraded landscapes & weeds affecting tourist experience, word of mouth, reputation of the Tasmania Wilderness Brand.
• Impacts on Property Values
• Social impacts caused by lower property values, residents and tourist business leaving, increase of absent landholders.
• Edge effect from easements changing forest ecology, drying out soils, particular rainforest gullies.
• Weeds, Dry soils and a westerly wind channel  are a recipe for elevated fire risk

With an already changing climate this will further dry out the landscape and adjacent wet forests, which would otherwise protect our community from a dangerous fire.  Every resident and property will be at direct risk. 

• Climate change will see more high fire danger days, risking the safety of residents, tourists and trekkers
• Wet forests protect the region for massive fires, drier forests are a risk for the whole region including the Central Coast's precious regional reserves

Loongana has one narrow, winding, unsealed road in and out, through forest, over bridges with wooden foundations, and we have no mobile reception or fire brigade, and to date we have no TFS-approved Safe Place of Last Resort.  Transmission lines should not go through forests, and certainly not through forest so close to a community. TasNetworks have designed a route that will be a clear and present danger for us all, ensuring that our only escape route from fire will be under the line itself. 

While the cleared easements and drying forests present an elevated fire risk, one of the most serious consequences are from the lines themselves during a fire event.

Fires near transmission lines can be dangerous.  The following facts are clearly laid out by Energy Providers in other states.

• Large fires burning adjacent to or under high voltage transmission lines have the potential to create electrical arcs (known as 'Flashovers') that can endanger communities and environments. 
  
• Smoke can act as a conductor.
  
• Fires burning on or near powerline easements can greatly increase the chances of a flashover occuring.   
  
• An additional risk are that wires sag lower in times of high demand, high temperature and fires, reducing the ground clearance. 
  

The potential for fires forming along transmission lines ahead of the main front will have our community trapped very quickly with our only exit being under transmission lines.

Currently this proposed transmission route amounts to culpable negligence. Does proceeding with these known risks leave our publically owned Tasnetworks vulnerable to a class action?

"We’ve had nearly a year of “community consultation”, and come to the conclusion that the UPC-TasNetworks-Marinus Project have spent more time and money on PR consultants to do box ticking in-order to fast-track an unacceptable route than actual fact-based research on all possible routes or alternatives before the cheapest one is selected."

Worse, the Valley regularly experiences high winds as measured on the Beaufort Scale and the easements will channel and intensify these strong winds through our community.  A drier landscape, with more dry fuel load, and a wind tunnel running west to east, increases the risk of faster-moving fires, impacting residents before they can escape. 

A severe fire could destroy one of the Central Coast’s few remaining areas of high bio-diversity in an increasingly fragmented landscape.

If the proposed route goes ahead, and these risks are assessed by insurance companies, local residents in and near the valley may be unable to find affordable insurance cover, if at all. Resulting property devaluations will hurt locals and communities, a number of whom run tourist businesses.

One of the local creeks providing drinking water

Some residents derive their water from springs, which may be contaminated by the herbicides required to keep the power line clear.  Residents will have to pay for water testing, and even find new sources of drinking water.

All proposed tourism business initiatives in the Valley are on hold.  If the transmission line goes ahead, there will be less reason for visitors to come, and greater risk for Valley residents in providing for them.

Loongana residents have been forced to bear the burden of uncertainty, misinformation, and potential costs imposed upon us – all for offshore investors and Mainland electricity consumers.  This has caused anxiety and distress amongst community, who are facing risks to their livelihoods, their amenity, and their work in preserving refuges and links for flora and fauna between the Loongana Range, the Black Bluff and the Leven Canyon. 

Residents will bear the economic costs of maintaining their private forests, weed control, feral animals, replanting borders and testing their water supplies.  Business will bear the economic costs from a bad reputation, lower visiter numbers all because of a bad plan that degrades a popular tourist wilderness area.  Landowners will bear the economic costs of lower property values.  Loongana will bear the social impacts of the community decline in numbers. These costs will be inter-generational.

Our community should not be asked to bear this burden. We are being forced to bear the costs of TasNetworks cheapest transmission option, before other routes are thoroughly and transparently explored.