The Jupiter Wind Farm, planned by company EPYC across 12,000 hectares, has sparked an action group and plenty of uncertainty.

It was the main topic of discussion at a council outreach meeting at Tarago on Tuesday night.

Progress Association member Cid Riley said the community had been expecting the company’s Environmental Assessment to be released in early September. This would spell out the turbines’ location.

“That’s the bit of information everyone is hanging off,” he said.

The 110-turbine Jupiter wind farm is pegged for land stretching from the southern edge of Lake Bathurst to 9km past the Kings Highway at Mulloon.

Mark Tomlinson, a Mayfield Rd resident, told the Post the company wasn’t giving residents any idea of the turbines’ location until the EA was released.

“But it could be that they’re awaiting the outcome of a government review of the renewable energy target,” he said.

Mr Tomlinson described the company’s consultation meeting in the village a few months ago as “a joke.” He said representatives wouldn’t answer questions or said they didn’t know.

Last Saturday the group invited Goulburn MP Pru Goward to the village for a meeting about the development. Mr Tomlinson said some 150 people turned up.

“We gave her a list of questions and she addressed most of them,” he said.

“She was very open about where we were at…We now have more of a direct link to her.”

Ms Goward could not update residents on the application’s progress.

Meantime, the action group is taking a petition to the ACT Legislative Assembly next Tuesday about the government’s 90 per cent renewable energy target.

“They want some of that coming from NSW,” Mr Tomlinson said.

“We’re saying that we don’t want wind farms and if the ACT government is so intent on them, they should be in their backyard.”

THE government has received 18 proposals in a recently completed reverse auction to secure 200MW of wind power by 2020.

Union Fenosa, which is developing the Crookwell Two and Three wind farms, is just one of the applicants.

Mayor takes swipe At Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Geoff Kettle strongly criticised the NSW Government’s approach to wind farm proposals.

He said they were automatically dubbed state significant and were subjected to the same assessment process as other ‘critical’ infrastructure such as major roads, tunnels and sewerage projects.

“I told Pru that if that’s the process, it sucks,” he told the meeting.

“I suggested she go back to her department, do her homework and change the way state significant developments are processed.”

Cr Kettle argued that different criteria should apply to wind farms because in his view, they were not ‘critical infrastructure.’ He maintained that whenever a project was classed as state significant, the process was heavily weighted to approval. The mayor cited the Ardmore Park quarry expansion at Bungonia as a case in point.

“I sat through the Planning Assessment Commission meeting at Bungonia and I might as well not have been there,” Cr Kettle said.

Asked his personal view of wind farms by an audience member, Cr Kettle said for him, ‘the jury was still out.”

Cr Robin Saville said he was committed to renewable energy but called for greater focus on solar energy. He questioned the Department of Planning’s rigour given the incorrect placement of turbines at the Gullen Range wind farm.

But a woman in the audience posed a dissenting view.

“I’m supportive of them in principle but clearly the process has to be managed well,” she said.