Kentbruck wind farm update: NGT is seeking transparency when a decision is made under the EPBC Act

As long-term readers of NGT’s newsletter will recall, since last year we’ve been discussing the challenge posed by poorly-sited renewable energy developments.

A quick recap…

This topic of discussion – and NGT’s decision to speak about it publicly in July last year – was prompted by the re-emergence of a proposal to build a massive wind farm immediately adjacent to several public reserves (including a Coastal Park and three National Parks) in remote far south-west Victoria, including NGT’s restoration project situated within the Glenelg Estuary and Discovery Bay Ramsar site.

You can find all our articles on this subject here.

Despite NGT experts (and others, including government officers) providing early, unequivocal advice in 2019 about how high-risk and unsuitable this sensitive location is for such a development, unfortunately the proponent ignored that advice and continued to push their poorly-sited development through the Victorian planning system.

It is now more than seven years later, and despite a lengthy Environmental Effects Statement (EES) assessment process, which concluded last year, this work failed to fully or sufficiently address Matters of National Environmental Significance, as required under the EPBC Act.

Although there are several Matters of National Environmental Significance NGT has identified as key deficiencies, two of the EPBC Act listed threatened species that the Victorian Planning Minister’s own subsequent report also identified were not adequately addressed by the Victorian EES process, include the Australasian Bittern and Southern Bent-winged Bat.

So where does that leave us?

Under the arrangements for the EPBC Act that apply to this project, the material produced via the Victorian EES process for Matters of National Environmental Significance must also be assessed by the Australian Government under the Act, prior to a final decision being made by the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment.

[Note that despite the Australian and Victorian Governments having a bilateral arrangement in place where the EES process covers several steps for the EPBC Act, the final review and decision rests with the Commonwealth. This provides an important safeguard for Matters of National Environmental Significance, especially in instances where those matters were not adequately assessed or addressed by the State process, as has occurred in this case].

As reported in the media earlier in the year, this final step in the assessment process remains paused while the Australian Government seeks further information from the proponent to enable the EPBC Act assessment to proceed. However, because this exchange of information between the Australian Government and the proponent is confidential, we have no way of knowing precisely what additional information or items of clarification have been sought, nor how this might impact the proposal, or the conditions that might apply, if the wind farm is eventually approved. We also have no way of knowing how long this process may take from here… and whether the timeframe will be measured in weeks, months or years.

A fresh challenge for the Southern Bent-wing Bat

Of note for the Southern Bent-wing Bat in particular, the inadequacies we have observed to date with the process, do not account for more recent information that has emerged about an unexplained major decline in the recorded population last summer at the Naracoorte caves maternity site (which you can read about here). Given the known extensive movement of bats throughout the landscape, including confirmed detections throughout the proposed Kentbruck wind farm site, this most up-to-date information must now also be taken into account.

This raises the question of how the Precautionary Principle will be correctly applied under the EPBC Act, given that a very high burden of proof must be placed on the proponent of any wind farm in the range of the Southern Bent-wing Bat, to demonstrate that their development will not cause (or, for existing wind farms, is not causing) the death or displacement of this critically endangered species.

This is a very challenging threshold to meet, because the species is difficult to detect when mortalities do occur (due to their small size and high likelihood of being scavenged quickly), and especially when the standard monitoring methods for post-construction mortality surveys of wind farms in Australia are generally lacking in their intensity. For example, these surveys typically only actively monitor a small proportion (e.g. 30%) of turbines in large wind farms, and do not necessarily occur regularly enough to prevent the risk of scavenging occurring prior to detection.

In summary, we can only know about or count the mortalities that are found, and it is only logical that the less a wind farm operator looks (both in extent and frequency), the less they will find. For a critically endangered species like the Southern Bent-wing Bat, where any level of impact is unacceptable, not knowing if or when bats are being killed is high problematic. After all, how do you effectively manage a risk that your methods potentially overlook, and that you are therefore not even aware of?

This is a topic we may return to again in a future blog.

What has NGT asked of Commonwealth Minister for the Environment?

In considering how best to ensure transparency of the process at this critical juncture, when the process eventually recommences, NGT recently wrote to the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment, asking him (or his delegate) to exercise important discretionary powers that exist under the EPBC Act. With new information coming to light, as outlined above, this takes on increasing importance.

Specifically we have requested, should the project be approved in any form, that he:

(a) publish the proposed decision and seek public comment for 10 days, before that decision is finalised; and,

(b) publish the full reasons for the decision.

If you’d like to read NGT’s full letter, to see what we have asked of the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment, including references to the relevant clauses in the Act, you will find this in the pdf viewer below (or by clicking here).

At the time of writing this article, we are yet to receive a response.

PS – If you are reading this article and share our concerns, you may also wish to correspond with the Minister. Postal details are in the letter below, or you can email your letter to his office at: