TRAGOWEL farmer Craig McIntosh has a big energy project on the horizon but it’s all up in the air unless he can plug it into the network.
“We have got a big wind project out here,” he said.
“We’re trying to get that up and going, but we’ve been walking around with an extension cord and nowhere to plug it in.”
VNI West is a 500 kV double circuit transmission line connecting the high voltage electricity grids in New South Wales and Victoria.
It will harness renewable electricity from energy zones, such as wind and solar power.
Transmission Company Victoria last week released the preferred easement for the Victorian section of the transmission project.
The initial 50km wide area of interest was refined to a 2km draft corridor and now a 70m preferred easement.
The preferred easement for the project runs from Bulgana to near Kerang and then across the border into New South Wales at Murrabit.
Mr McIntosh’s farmland will have eight to 10km of transmission line and towers.
“More or less, a group of us out here has been all for it and in the middle is the group against it, but they can do what they want to do,” he said.
“My family has been out here a long time and when the 220kv line came through, we all switched off generators.
“It was a real advancement in the area and I can see this next one being the next advancement.
“You have to work long-term nowadays because that was 60 years ago since they put that line through and we haven’t done much since then.
“If that one fails, we are in all sorts of trouble so we just have to keep up with the time.
“A lot of people don’t want to, but it’s chance, and change has to happen.
“It’s going to advance the area and bring more business in, and rather than having a country that’s dying with a lack of people. We’ve got to get more young people around.”
Diversification was also a factor for Mr McIntosh.
“I’ll have part of my farm as a power farm, part of it a cropping farm and part of it a livestock farm,” he said.
“So I’ll have three different angles, and in drought the power farm will help me and vice versa
“That’s the diversification I will get long-term … it’s for the next generations that will benefit from it.
“Someone’s got to pay for all these roads. If we get this wind turbine job up, that’s multi-million dollars coming in the economy that won’t come from anywhere else.
“And the council can’t keep lifting rates without more advancements and more businesses.
“The biggest thing is, most people don’t like change. They like to be in their own little shell and be comfortable.
“But we’ve always embraced change … you have got to be forward, not backward looking.”
Mr McIntosh rubbished opposes’ claims that the transmission line would devalue land.
“If they’re the same people whose neighbour’s farm came up for sale and it dropped 30 per cent they would buy it with power lines on it,” he said.
“You can’t have one and not the other. I believe the people who are whinging are just holding out for more money anyway.
“They are making a lot of noise but they are going to vote what their hip pocket says in the end.”
Mr McIntosh said legal action to stop VNI West was a case of “throwing money away”.
“You might as well throw it on the ground, because you won’t beat them in the courts,” he said.
“They get into a mob mentality, they all get in and start and don’t know how to get out of it … don’t know how to back down without looking bad to their friends and neighbours.
“Other people say, ‘Oh, no, we don’t want a good road here because it costs too much’. Now everyone complains that there’s a hole in a good road and all the power goes off for 10 minutes. Everyone panics.”
Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano believed the approach taken so far had involved “inadequate” consultation with affected communities and a “disregard for the impact on strategic agricultural land”.
“From the very outset of this process, we’ve witnessed a reality that steamrolls over the voices and rights of those in farming communities set to be impacted,” she said.
“Farmers have been asking completely reasonable questions about how this infrastructure will impact their production, safety and how they will be compensated for their losses. So many of these questions remained unanswered, yet Victoria is ploughing on through with this transmission line.”
“VNI West will traverse over some of the state’s most important agricultural land. These are areas of strategic significance for Victoria’s economy, yet this has never been factored into the planning of the line.”
