Agriculture
21 August, 2023
2km path selected but AEMO won't say where
AUSTRALIAN Energy Market Operator's VNI West project business Transmission Company Victoria has selected its refined part to string 500 kV lines on 80-metre tall towers across the Loddon. A media release, embargoed until 12.01am today (Tuesday) says...
AUSTRALIAN Energy Market Operator's VNI West project business Transmission Company Victoria has selected its refined part to string 500 kV lines on 80-metre tall towers across the Loddon.
A media release, embargoed until 12.01am today (Tuesday) says the path no more than 2km wide will not be released "out of respect for the landholders in the draft corridor".
AEMO had earlier said it would not start contacting landholders until late August.
The Loddon Herald understands AEMO and TCV have community "events" planned for September although none are scheduled in Loddon Shire communities. AEMO has been contacted for comment.
In this morning's statement, AEMO said:
Transmission Company Victoria (TCV) has refined the 5km to 50km VNI West area of interest into a draftcorridor for the VNI West project. This has been done utilising feedback from landholders, communitymembers, Traditional Owners and government agencies, as well as data from engineering, environmental
and cultural assessments.
TCV’s landholder liaison team will begin calling landholders from this week to advise them that their property or farm is currently within the draft corridor for VNI West.
Each landholder will be appointed a landholder liaison, who will be their key contact and able to help answer
questions on important issues, including farming with transmission lines, biosecurity arrangements, accessagreements and compensation for easement and other payments.
Out of respect for the landholders in the draft corridor, TCV has committed to do everything it can to contactthese farmers and property owners before publishing details of the draft corridor.
TCV Spokesperson, Nicola Falcon said: “This is a significant milestone as it now allows one-on-oneconversations with farmers and landholders, to listen and answer questions related to their properties.
“These conversations are an essential element of the work to refine the route for VNI West and confirm theinformation and insights from recent community consultation, technical analysis and the interactive map,”she said.
TCV has identified a draft corridor for the project which runs from the Murray River through to Bulgana,averaging approximately 2km wide.
“We were hoping to get down to a narrower corridor by this stage but with the data collected throughstudies and consultation, we decided to focus on a broader corridor for the next phase of the project toprovide more flexibility and better options to find the optimal route,” Ms Falcon said.
“This approach will allow us to incorporate the feedback and insights our land team gathers fromlandholders into the route refining process,” she said.
In coming months, TCV will refer a draft corridor to the Minister for Planning to consider whether anEnvironment Effects Statement is required.
VNI West cannot proceed without planning approval from the State and Commonwealth Governments,which will require comprehensive environmental assessments over the next 12 – 18 months.
The TCV land team will be asking for access to properties for environmental field studies in coming months,but not all the land holdings in the corridor will be required for this work.
Our land team will negotiate access agreements, including biosecurity requirements, before any field surveyscommence. Further information can be found in the Landholder Guide on our website.
Landholders are eligible to receive $10,000, two payments of $5,000 over two years, for entering a landaccess agreement.This payment recognises the time commitment required to negotiate these agreements, including time thatwill take a farmer and their family away from their normal work and routine. TCV will also fund landholders’
reasonable costs for legal review of the land access agreement.
Discussions with landholders will help to validate data collected in the planning process so far. This includesverifying constraints identified in the recent Environmental Constraints Summary Report and throughcommunity feedback on the interactive map.
“TCV will continue to further refine the route for VNI West that has the least impact to agriculture, culturalheritage and values rural communities and the environment,” Ms Falcon said.