Powerlink EIS dismisses concerns | Noosa News | Local News in Noosa

It shows the typical arrogance of Powerlink to release the EIS 1 week before Christmas. The community must now spend the holiday season studying a huge 6 volume document, while Powerlink and Parsons Brinkerhof staff enjoy their summer break!
We are told no hard copies of the EIS will be provided, so we are expected to travel 30 minutes to Noosa or Nambour and sit in the library all day to read the one copy there. Many affected residents do not own computers, and are therefore disadvantaged.
How dare Mr. Bartlett say "there does not appear to be any social, environmental or cultural heritage issues..". This community has spent over 2 years providing details of hundreds of issues and reasons as to why this project should not proceed in this environmentally valuable area. Powerlink and PB merely ignore it all, steadfastly intent on their initial proposal of bulldozing through families homes and livelihoods. A valid solar thermal proposal is ignored, utilising the hwy upgrade as an infrastructure corridor is ignored, and destruction of koalas and scores of other native wildlife and flora are ignored!
Shame on you Powerlink!

This will be a complete tragedy. Another one.... in the litany of tragedies that are owed to this government.

Cold-hearted, environmental vandals of the most ruthless, manipulative kind.

One thing, and only one thing, matters; their profit margin. Everything else is just colateral damage.

Well put JennyT & Zorro!

Not much I can add, except to say maybe we have all been hoodwinked by Premier Bligh.

Maybe she's gunning for a sainthood!

The first miracle was being able to make almost 700 million dollars just vanish.

The second might be that she reveals her true colours, and she is not the gross envirionmental vandal we all think she is. She then pulls Powerlink into line for even thinking about bulldozing through Koala habitat and land for wildlife corridors while a new highway with infrastructure easements is about to be constructed.

The third miracle is her re-election.

Saint Anna, Hmmm...got a zany, but sweet ring to it.

Fearful of the growing koala threat, Powerlink's cover letter states, "An alternative route along the Bruce Highway...was shown to impact a large area of mapped koala habitat". Such sole dismissive sentence reveals much. It avoids the "greater" koala, environmental and agricultural destructions of their unchanged proposed uncleared route. It asserts the Bruce Highway project, within which the powerline spans would run within or along its borders, IS impacting a large area of mapped koala habitat. It ignores sections of the already cleared "old" Bruce highway will be left abandoned for the "new" sections which will also be cleared and maintained. It ignores the government mandate that new infrastructure be located within existing cleared routes. It repeatedly ignores obvious shorter distance, access, costs and other required concerns. Its mitigation measures, similar to the Traveston Dam, are a folly, already evidenced by recent callous destruction of an identified protected black-button quail habitat. The various EIS by its Powerlink paid and controlled consultant, who has a past and future large financial conflict of interest to agree with the project, makes all a repeated sham. Once again, our MPs raise no opposition, ignore resident arguments, provide no options, and take no public stand, though they are expected to vote against the project when it is too late only for their re-election self interests.

I agree with you totally Rural !! Where is the common sense gone. These days it is not that common. Koalas don't hang around the highway to be run over by trucks !!.
So where is that nonsense that even supposedly intelligent politicians believe, that the area around the highway has greater koala habitat value ? This is just a tasteless joke that they are making us to swallow. We won't be laughing when there is no koalas left, because corporations like Powerlink has decimated their habitat and the poor animals get squashed by 20 tone trucks that run up and down the highway. It seems this case can not be challenge with logic sense. Hopefully this will be another case like the Traveston Dam, where finally common sense will prevail so we can see our national icon saved.