APPEAL AGAINST AUTHORISATION FOR THE PROPOSED LANGHOOGTE WIND FARM, BOT RIVER

Public Participation

The Public Participation process has been tainted by the withholding of information which should have been provided to I&APs.  Namely:

• The letter of Rejection of the EIA dated 31 May 2013.
• The letter from Gibb dated 6 June 2013 in response to the Rejection.
• The existence and findings of a site visit conducted on 15 May 2103

Their existence only became apparent to I&APs when referred to in the Environmental Authorisation distributed by Gibb on 22 August 2013. They were then only provided to those I&APs requesting this information, with the remainder presumably still deprived of such information.

Authorisation process

The competent authority appears not to have applied its mind in considering this EIA and related documentation.

Firm evidence of this is apparent from the request, in the notice of Rejection, for further information which had in fact already been available to them in the FEIA documentation on which they were supposedly basing their decision – see letter from Gibb date 6 June 2013.

The Environmental Authorisation of 15 August 2013 in Annexure 1 Reasons for Decision, states that the following were considered:-

1. The information in the EIR dated 27 February 2013, and its “addendum” dated 6 June 2013.

There is no such Addendum. Only a letter from Gibb containing substantive responses to the letter of rejection of the EIA dated 31 May 2013. The letter contained no new information.

2. Findings of the site visit conducted on 15 May 2103

 It would appear that the findings of this site visit were used both as grounds for Rejection on 31 May 2013, but also cited as grounds for Authorisation on 15 August 2013. Surely contradictory?

An attempt to obtain a record of the site meeting from Gibb has been unsuccessful, with the latter claiming that no notes had been taken.

Avifauna

The Authorisation has been issued despite the fact that the Avifauna study is still incomplete. Also, several serious deficiencies have been pointed out by I&APs which would appear to have been ignored by the DEA.

The Avifauna Specialist, Mr. Chris van Rooyen, took the most unusual step of questioning my comments on the FEIA Avifauna Report  in a public forum on the BirdLife Overberg website - 

 http://www.westerncapebirding.co.za/conservation/413/chris_van_rooyen_reacts_to_dr_stuart_shearers_comments_on_the_final_eia_report_for_the_proposed_langhoogte_wind_farm

I refused to become embroiled in a public debate on what is a statutory process, but I will now provide the DEA with my responses to some of the Specialist’s questioning as well as attempting to clarify the issues at stake.

Dams and water bodies

The specialist recognized that “dams and wetlands therefore constitute high risk habitat as far as potential collisions are concerned”, and in the IRR maintained that all dams had been subject to a 300m buffer which informed turbine placement. This 300m buffer has however never been mentioned in the body of any of the DSR, FSR, DEIA, FEIA or EMP reports.

The specialist mentioned “many” farm dams in the DSR yet this was reduced to “several” in the FEIA, with only one large dam being identified as a possible Blue Crane roost.Tthe Agricultural Specialist however reported that: “A total of 56 dams have been identified in the study area.” (Appendix E5: Agricultural Specialist Report, S “3.3.2 Water), page 31). This is easy to verify simply using Google Earth.

An analysis, using data made available from the EIA documentation, shows that turbines (15), 16, 17, 23, 25, 33, 35, 39, 40, 43 and 45 are all placed within 300m of a water body.

 At the scoping stage the following statement was made by the Specialist:

“Determination of the actual use of these dams and wetlands will require further surveys during the pre-construction period. In this respect nocturnal flight movement by Blue Cranes in and out of roost sites is of specific importance.”

• This has not been done and is a further reason for considering the Final Avifauna Report as being insufficient for Authorisation purposes.

It was stated in the FEIA: “that these dams differ in their suitability to avifauna, but most have shallow sloping sides and therefore seem potentially suitable to a variety of species that forage or roost in shallow water. Priority species that could be attracted to these waterbodies are African Fish-Eagle, White Stork, Blue Crane and African Marsh-Harrier.”

• These sites have not been specifically assessed.

Without this information, which is vital to the impact assessment on threatened Blue Cranes, the DEA were not sufficiently informed to make an objective decision.

Power lines

It is stated that:

• “The most important associated infrastructure from a potential bird impact assessment perspective is the planned power line which will connect the wind farm to the grid at the Houhoek Substation.”

• “Power line collisions might be a significant impact for Blue Crane and Denham’s Bustard, with the northern option being the most preferred option from a bird impact perspective. Marking the line with Bird Flight Diverters should reduce the risk from high to medium.”

This assumption is disputed.

In a recent paper published in ‘Environment’ it is stated that:

 “Marking power lines with devices to make them more visible is the standard international mitigation measure for collisions, but evidence that it works for our birds is lacking.”

The authors are undertaking further research in an attempt to find definitive answers. (‘Environment 15, 2013’: Jess Shaw, Prof. Peter Ryan, Rob Little.)

 Blue Crane re-colonisation

It is claimed that:

“re-colonisation of the site by Blue Cranes after the construction phase is likely, based on the species’ known tolerance for anthropogenic related sources of disturbance.”

This is strongly contested as being without merit or based on comparable experience - an industrial scale WEF with multiple turbines reaching overall heights of up to 160 metres like Langhoogte cannot be compared to normal farming practices.

 “Cranes avoided sources of anthropogenic disturbance at both the landscape and field scales….” (Mark T Bidwell. Unpublished MSc thesis (Conservation Biology), Department of Zoology, UCT. March 2004)

There is no mention or assessment that the extensive network of roads will also most likely have an impact on Blue Crane habits and nesting.

Transect routes and nest sites

It is stated again, since no satisfactory response or explanation has been forthcoming from the Specialist, that a large area of the wind farm site on which some 19 turbines are planned (red ellipse), has not been closely observed by means of transect routes. The Bat Specialist managed to survey this area so we are at a loss as to why did the Avifaunal study team chose not to survey this area by means of transect routes. See Figure 1.

Also shown in this diagram are the 3 main areas of Blue Crane sightings as reported by the Avifauna team (white ellipses), which were also traversed by transect routes. Incredibly however, Blue Crane nests were only reported in a small cluster in Area 1. As the Spring survey occurred during only a part of the Blue Crane breeding season it is highly likely that many other nests were missed altogether from other areas, if indeed all transects received equal attention on all visits. This is another likely significant flaw in the report considering the large population of Blue Cranes well known to frequent this entire area. This issue was also highlighted by CapeNature.

Denham’s Bustards

 Two Denham’s Bustard leks were recorded in the Draft Avifaunal EIA, but only one in the FEIA. It was then proposed that:-

“4.3.1 Displacement

The following management actions are proposed to minimise the impact of displacement on priority species (see also section 4.5 below):

Follow-up surveys should be conducted in the period September – November 2013 (the lekking season) to gather further information on the presence of a potential Denham’s Bustard lek that was identified through the initial pre-construction monitoring surveys. Should the presence of the display site be confirmed, it is recommended that turbines 2 and 38 are relocated outside the estimated lek area.”

This is reinforced by the following “(Denham’s Bustard) Nests usually within 1-2 km (up to 4 km) of male display sites” (“Roberts VII”, Hockey et al. 2005).

• The follow-up survey has not been done and this requirement is not mentioned in the Authorisation – this should be rectified.

 Control site

The location of a control/reference site as recommended in the BLSA/EWT Best Practice Guidelines has still not been revealed by the Avifaunal Specialist, who has also refused to divulge monitoring data which should have been performed in parallel with the WEF site. There are no details of the monitoring performed or any other data which could enable I&APs and Commenting Authorities to judge the extent, suitability and validity of the chosen control site.

To quote from the BLSA/EWT Guidelines:

“6. On-site work must be coupled with the collection of directly comparable data at a nearby, closely matched control or reference site. This will provide much needed context for the analysis of pre- vs. post-construction monitoring data.

8. Baseline monitoring will require periodic visits to both the development and reference sites, sufficient

in frequency to adequately sample all major variations in environmental conditions…..”

·         This information should have been made available in the Specialist Report, and specified in the Authorisation.

Bats

In its Rejection notice the DEA requested:

 “a statement must be included from the specialist indicating that there is enough data to enable specialists to make an informed recommendation on the significance of impacts.”

The response from Gibb was:

 “…Pages 147 to 148 of the Issues and Response Report provided a detailed motivation from the Bat Specialist stating that “the lack of 12 months worth of monitoring data does not reduce confidence in the EIA. The EIA informed the acceptance of the site for wind farm development and the proposed turbine layout”.

This clearly does not answer the question posed by DEA, and is considered to be obfuscatory.

It is wholly unacceptable to accept that 3 days of observation on a visit in winter, in heavy rain during a cold front, with only sections of the site accessible by vehicle can be regarded as adequate pre-construction monitoring to establish baseline data. The DEA required:

 “a final bat monitoring report which must contain monitoring data for 12 months (4 seasons) with the detailed results, impact predictions and recommendations.”

This has evidently not been done and must be requested again before Authorisation should be considered.

·         The Authorisation was issued based on incomplete information without a full year of monitoring, including all 4 seasons, as required in the Guidelines.

EMPr & Post-construction monitoring

It is noted that the EMPr was not approved by the DEA. This however means that I&APs will not have an opportunity to scrutinize or comment on a revised EMPr prior to any approvals and decision-making by DEA.

Of particular concern is the lack of separate detailed post-construction programmes for bird and bat monitoring.  There are only general references to the BLSA and EWT Guidelines respectively, but no detailed methodology on which to assess the appropriateness and thoroughness of these future surveys. There are no undertakings to follow the recommended protocols established through research in the Overberg.  The EWT Guideline on Bat Surveillance does not provide guidance on post-construction monitoring.

Having accurate, credible and scientifically defensible data will be critical in assessing the operational effects of this WEF and to inform ongoing mitigation measures at this site. Wider distribution of the data through the auspices of BLSA, EWT, CapeNature and I&APs requesting such information  will ensure that these data are taken into account at Regional and National levels for other WEF environmental assessments,  to enable amendments to existing guidelines and in recommending appropriate mitigation measures.

Presumably with the vastly increased workload resulting from the many RE projects throughout the country the National DEA will not have the necessary resources and in-house expertise to monitor all EMPrs and avifauna and bat monitoring programmes.

• Who then is to monitor the monitors?

 Cumulative Impacts

Cumulative impacts such as a potential barrier effect of multiple adjacent developments such as this one and the Caledon WEF (DEA Ref. No 12/12/20/1701) would not appear to have been assessed by the DEA.  Figure 2.

We agree with CapeNature that cumulative effects, particularly on threatened bird and bat species must be taken into account. The Competent Authority must apply its mind to the substantial potential negative cumulative effects resulting from the known and planned WEFs in this area.