Bushfire Powerline Safety Consultation Process Failing?
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June 6, 2011A central Victorian PWF reader tells us a well-meaning 2 May media release from the Powerline Bushfire Safety Taskforce, about community info meetings, only reached her yesterday, 1 June. She is concerned Gippsland and Mitchell Shire survivors will have been left out of the loop too.
Consultation Paper On Options To Reduce Bushfire Risk From Electricity Infrastructure
The info sessions about this paper have mostly been in May and organisers are concerned people haven’t been coming to meetings.
What The Taskforce Wants
Taskforce chairman Tim Orton says a large range of options has been considered to reduce the state’s bushfire risk, but the optimum solution is most likely to be a combination of measures.
Research has shown that while Victorians want increased safety from fires, they don’t want significant increases in their power bills.
The Taskforce wants people to read the paper or attend a meeting and make a submission by 24 June, 2011.
One More Community Consultation Meeting
Benalla – Thursday 9 June, 7.30 – 9pm
Benalla Performing Arts And Convention Centre, 57 Samaria Road.
For Powerline Bushfire Safety Taskforce Info Click Below
CLICK HERE FOR THE PAPER
CLICK FOR COMMUNITY PRESENTATION ‘Preventing Catastrophic Fires From The Electricity System’
CLICK HERE FOR PRESS RELEASE
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A Predictable Response
Our reader sent the info to all the Black Saturday survivors she knows personally and makes the observation that
“it has predictably caused a great flurry of activity from some very cross people because, once again, people in the city simply have no idea how to communicate important information to people in the country.
One very tame response from Energy Safe Victoria has been forwarded to me, along the lines ‘we advertised it widely on TV, radio and print in the Age and the Herald-Sun’. They just don’t get it! If it is not on the ABC, that cuts out a lot of people (like me, for instance). Country people only read Melbourne papers for the news, they don’t go searching every edition for public notices, and seldom read ads. I have checked all the local media (newspapers and local radio) in the Shire of Murrindindi, and the media release has not turned up anywhere.”
Please pass on this info to friends and colleagues in bushfire areas
1 Comment
Submissions to the Powerline Bushfire Safety Taskforce have now been published on the Energy Safe Victoria web site. MAV and a couple of shires make the point that what the Taskforce is “suggesting” (some may say “pre-empting”) is bereft of cost-benefit analysis. The electricity industry (via ESV and the Taskforce) seems to be forcing customers to pay for the rotten rusty system to be replaced, when they were provided with funds for SIXTEEN YEARS to do that work, but they failed to deliver. We are going to pay twice to fix a system that will still be prone to igniting firestorms on days like that!!
119 people died not for want of fuel reduction burning, but because a corroded, frayed, brittle SWER line at Kilmore East fell down. The full Police report on the appalling status of that line is Exhibit 525 at the royalcommission.vic.gov.au web site, and it demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that the conductor was corroded, frayed and suffering metal fatigue (brittle). IMO, any reasonable person can say that the power line was UNSAFE. i.e. not safe, i.e. DANGEROUS!
If the forthcoming Coroners Inquest for the Murrindindi-Marysville firestorm (40 deaths) finds that power line sparks were involved in the ignition sequence, then NINETY-THREE PERCENT of Black Saturday’s death toll will be shown to have been from firestorms ignited by power line sparks.
Everyone seems to have lost sight of what the Royal Commission was about: PREVENTING the ignition of unstoppable firestorms. All electricial engineers know that there are inherent fire risks for overhead power lines on windy Code Red days. So if we really and truly want a repeat of Black Saturday, the answer is dead simple: leave the power lines turned on when the GFDI and/or FFDI are over 100.