Wind Farm Objection 27th July 2021

I strongly object to the proposed windfarm construction in Derroura forestry.

I grew up very near to Derroura forestry and use the area regularly for leisure purposes when I visit the area. Derroura forestry area is located between Oughterard and Maam Cross, the gateway to Connemara and offers spectacular views to Maam valley and westwards to the Twelve Pins as well as overlooking Lough Corrib. The locality around the proposed site for the wind farm is truely beautiful and the visual impact alone of rows and rows of industrial wind turbine is extremely upsetting.

There are a number of wind farms located in the area already including Galway Wind Park, wind farm cluster that consists of four wind farms – Cloosh, Lettercraffroe, Seecon and Uggool. Other wind farm in rural county Galway include Rossaveel Wind Farm, Knock South Wind Farm (Inverin), Knock South Wind Farm and Leitir Guingaid Wind Farm Wind.

Ireland landmass is ~ 70,000km2 and has hundreds of onshore windfarms, many along the beautiful coastline of West, South West and North West of Ireland which I believe spoils the beautiful rugged landscape and natural beauty of the west coast all along the Wild Atlantic Way.

Wind power is a fast-growing renewable energy technology in Ireland, with 4,351.0 MW of installed wind power capacity as of 2020. https://www.thewindpower.net/store_continent_en.php?id_zone=1000

See link for list of connected energised wind generators in Ireland, https://www.esbnetworks.ie/docs/default-source/publications/dso-connected-energised-wind-generators-q1-2021.pdf?sfvrsn=379506f0_46

Similar county sizes to Ireland include Croatia, Costa Rica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Switzerland but have a much lower wind power capacity – see below, https://www.thewindpower.net/store_continent_en.php?id_zone=1000

· Bosnia and Herzegovina Official capacity (MW) 135.0 (2020)

· Costa Rica- Official capacity (MW) 394.0 (2020)

· Croatia Official capacity (MW) 803.0 (2020)

· Estonia Official capacity (MW) 320.0 (2020)

· Latvia Official capacity (MW) 68.0 (2020)

· Lithuania Official capacity (MW) 548.0 (2020)

· Slovakia Official capacity (MW) 3.1 (2020)

· Switzerland Official capacity (MW) 87.0 (2020)

The following countries are much larger than Ireland but have a considerable lower amount of wind farms/ installed wind power capacity compared to Ireland.

Finland is about 4.8 times bigger than Ireland and has a large coastline -

· Finland Official capacity (MW) 2,586.0 (2020)

Iceland is about 1.5 times bigger than Ireland.-

· Iceland Official capacity (MW) 4.2 (2020)

Australia is about 110 times bigger than Ireland.

· Australia- Official capacity (MW) 9,457.0 (2020)-

Canada is about 142 times bigger than Ireland.

· Canada- Official capacity (MW) 13,588.0 (2020)

 

I don’t see the rationale or need to have such a high concentration of wind farms in a small geographical area like rural Connemara? Who is the driving force behind this demand? It is not the local people who live and work in the area.

Who is benefiting from the hundreds of onshore wind farms construction on the small island of Ireland? Is it the Irish state or local or private international investors like Amazon? The large benefactors are not the local people. I believe the cons of another wind farm construction and operation far outweigh the benefits to local community health and wellbeing as well as to the local wildlife and environment.

The inconvenience alone to the local people for the construction of the windfarm;

· Extra traffic on the road, articulated trucks and machinery required for the construction

· Access to the roads, road closures & disruptions,

· Restricted access to leisure area of Derroura and its surroundings, the installation can take up a significant portion of land

· Air pollution due of the construction, extra traffic and machinery in the area

· Ugly visual impact of wind farms

· Noise pollutions from construction and the operation of the wind farms

I strongly believe that a construction and operation of a wind farm in this area for a number of environmental reasons and I also believe it would negatively impact on my health and wellbeing.

1. Visual impact to local scenery

The visual impact that large wind turbine will have on the surrounding landscape would be heart-breaking in my view. There is already a windfarm visible in one direction so having another windfarm constructed on the other side would be devastating. The view from the tops of local hill and mountains are truly spectacular and largely unspoilt which is the way it should be maintained in order to preserve the natural rugged landscape and local habitats. The construction of large numbers of ugly industrial size wind turbines will permanently damage the natural beauty of the landscape, reducing uninterrupted views and potentially damaging tourism to the area as a result. I understand the importance of green energy but cannot accept the large number of windfarms being constructed in a small geographical rural area in count Galway. I believe there should be a minimum distance (100km at minimum) between each wind farm.

2. Danger to local wildlife, natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora.

Wind energy can have adverse environmental impacts, including the potential to reduce, fragment, or degrade habitat for wildlife, fish, and plants. The proposed windfarm is located near Lough Corrib the largest freshwater lake in Republic of Ireland. Lough Corrib is home to a variety of fresh water fish including brown trout, pike, perch, and roach, and it also attracts salmon and eels from the Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, spinning turbine blades can pose a threat to flying wildlife like birds and bats and most likely as a result reduce the local bird population. Wind farms can harm birds in three possible ways: disturbance, habitat loss (both direct and/or indirect) and collision.

In addition, Derroura forestry also has a population of wild deer in the area which would be adversely affected by the wind farm construction and operation.

The following species are protected or rare species in West Business Area Unit (BAU).

· Lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposidero) Regarded by International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) as ‘facing a high risk of extinction in

the wild in the medium-term future’ are protected or rare species in West BAU. Also listed in EU Habitats Directive, Annex II.

· Freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) Regarded by International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) as ‘facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future’. Also listed in EU Habitats Directive, Annex II.

· Atlantic salmon Listed in EU Habitats Directive, Annex II

https://www.coillte.ie/media/2018/03/B2-Mid-West-BAU-Strategic-Plan-2016-to-2020.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/species/guidance/pdf/guidance_en.pdf

3. Water contamination risk

Windfarms have been linked to water contamination due to the construction of these large turbines. Whitelee Wind Farm near Glasgow is an example of one wind farm has been linked as a contributing factor to water contamination in the area. The ‘Request for Action 2004/35/CE’ was lodged with the Scottish Government and agencies in July 2014. The Scottish Government response stated that SEPA is responsible for damage to the Water Environment. See links – http://www.windsofjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Request-for-Action-Jul-2015-v2.pdf http://www.windsofjustice.org.uk/2019/06/impacts-of-wind-turbine-construction-on-hydrology-and-geohydrology/

Closer to home and within the last year (NOv 2020) another example of severe water contamination with detrimental effect to a protected species happened at the site of a wind farm under construction at Meenbog, near Ballybofey, County Donegal.

A bog collapse which resulted in a large quantity of peat slid down the hillside and ended up in the Mourne Beg, an internationally important salmon spawning river near Castlederg in County Tyrone.

It is a key spawning river for Atlantic salmon - a protected species.

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of peat and forestry slid down the hillside over a number of days destroying countryside and wildlife and devastating fish life in the Mourne Beg River.

The concerns about the wind farm had been well flagged by environmentalists and local people who knew the area well but their objections, concerns on consequences of the construction were ignored.

News reports stated that “anglers were devastated and were expecting a complete fish kill in the Mourne Beg.”

Gweebarra Conservation Group, said that the event was caused by “the wrong trees in the wrong place and a road constructed through the trees and bog to get turbines into the bog – which is polluting waterways on both sides of the border”.

Internet retail giant Amazon has been linked to buying the Meenbog wind farms energy to support it Amazon Web Services data centre in Ireland.

Data centres require considerable amounts of power to operate, with the running of servers and other infrastructure and the cooling of the centres a big drain on energy.

Invis Energy is responsible for the development of the facility at Meenbog, and it will be done without any public subsidies, according to Amazon, meaning it won't be subject to the public service obligation levy.

The PSO (Public Service Obligation) levy is mandated by the Irish Government and approved by the European Commission. It is charged to all electricity customers in Ireland and supports the generation of electricity from sustainable, renewable and indigenous sources.

We the citizens of Ireland all have to pay this charge via electrical utility bills but large billion dollar corporate companies like Amazon are exempt from paying!!

See link- https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-foyle-west-54994865 https://www.farmersjournal.ie/watch-thousands-of-tonnes-of-peat-and-trees-slide-downstream-in-donegal-584016 https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/meenbog-wind-farm-peat-slippage-who-will-clean-up-this-mess/ https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2019/0408/1041380-amazon-to-buy-entire-output-from-donegal-wind-farm/

 

The proposed wind farm in Derroura is located near Lough Corrib one the largest freshwater lakes in Europe which if water contamination did occur would be utterly devastating to fish and wildlife and to the local community.

Many other freshwater lakes and rivers are also located nearby which are home to the protected freshwater pearl mussel which are only found in in near-pristine freshwater habitats and so any risk to this environmental must be taken very seriously and a risk assessment conducted by independent body. See link- https://www.pearlmusselproject.ie/freshwater-pearl-mussel.htm

It states “European freshwater pearl mussel populations have declined by 90% over the past century. In Ireland, 27 freshwater pearl mussel populations are protected within Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). The main reason for this decline is the low level of survival of juvenile mussels, which are extremely sensitive to slight changes in environmental conditions.”

One of the main catchment areas for the fresh water pearl mussel is the Owenriff river which is located near Derroura forestry area and drains to Lough Corrib to the East. The catchment covers some of the upper and lower slopes of the Twelve Bens mountain range and has several lakes including Lough Boffin, Lettercraffroe Lough, and Lough Agraffard.

There is already a wind farm located near Lettercraffroe Lough, so another windfarm is unwarranted and poses additional elevated risk to endangered species (lesser horseshoe bat, freshwater pearl mussell, Atlantic salmon) in the local environment and also could negatively impact on water quality in nearby rivers and lakes which are listed as Special Areas of Conservation (SACs).

Futhermore, some local residents have spring water wells for drinking purposes and domestic use. With such a precious commodity like fresh spring water if this water became contaminated, I don’t see how this could be rectified or easily reversed – the price of the damage would be incomprehensible. The only way to reduce all potential risk of water contamination is to the stop construction of windfarms.

4. Adverse health effects of wind farms

Wind farms are also associated with a number negative health effects – see link as reference https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3653647/

The report states that “Canadian family physicians can expect to see increasing numbers of rural patients reporting adverse effects from exposure to industrial wind turbines (IWTs). People who live or work in close proximity to IWTs have experienced symptoms that include decreased quality of life, annoyance, stress, sleep disturbance, headache, anxiety, depression, and cognitive dysfunction. Some have also felt anger, grief, or a sense of injustice. Suggested causes of symptoms include a combination of wind turbine noise, infrasound, dirty electricity, ground current, and shadow flicker.1”

Other reports within the article states that people notes reduced quality of life and adverse health effects including sleep disturbance, impaired mental health, sleeplessness and excessive tiredness, headaches, stress, migraines, hearing problems, tinnitus, heart palpitations, anxiety, and depression. Wind farms have even been linked to increased rates of suicide. http://www.windaction.org/posts/47430-wind-turbine-syndrome-the-impact-of-wind-farms-on-suicide#.YP9CR71KjIU

Wind turbines create noise and generate heavy ground vibrations and pulsating air waves that affect nature and people at long distances.

The WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region provide guidance on protecting human health from harmful exposure to environmental noise. They set health-based recommendations on average environmental noise exposure of five relevant sources of environmental noise. See link- https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/383922/noise-guidelines-exec-sum-eng.pdf

The executive summary states that “Noise is an important public health issue. It has negative impacts on human health and well-being and is a growing concern. The WHO Regional Office for Europe has developed these guidelines, based on the growing understanding of these health impacts of exposure to environmental noise. The main purpose of these guidelines is to provide recommendations for protecting human health from exposure to environmental noise originating from various sources: transportation (road traffic, railway and aircraft) noise, wind turbine noise and leisure noise.”

Wind Turbine noise recommendation listed –“ For average noise exposure, the GDG conditionally recommends reducing noise levels produced by wind turbines below 45 dB Lden, as wind turbine noise above this level is associated with adverse health effects.”

In conclusion, I whole heartily and strongly object to the proposed construction of a windfarm in Derroura forestry in Connemara for the above reasons. I am passionate about the environment and believe we need to explore other options for green energy such as solar panels on homes that have no impact on the local environment.

Maeve Shiel 29/7/2021