Great news- but the champagne’s on ice

By Melissa Grant
FARMERS have loosened the cork on the champagne bottle and are preparing to pop it, anxiously waiting to discover whether pylons will be erected on their properties.
The State Government’s preference is to use underground power for the desalination plant, but affected landholders won’t know if the lines will be buried until the Spring Street considers bids from two private consortiums.
“We’re all happy where things are headed – we believe it’s the right way,” Cora Lynn potato farmer Col Hobson said.
“But there is still that little dampener.”
About 180 landholders would be affected if the successful bidder takes the overhead option.
The State Government’s preference is for the power route to go along the project’s pipeline alignment from an existing overhead easement in Clyde North to an existing terminal station in Cranbourne.
David Young, the immediate past president of the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) Cardinia branch, said farmers were pleased that the State Government had publicly stated its preference for underground power.
“Obviously we’re excited by the fact the government has now reconsidered and it’s their preferred option to go underground,” he said. “If that is the final decision with the bid teams, then it will be a great win for the rural community, particularly the potato growers and other intensive agricultural farmers that were in the line of the powerlines.”
Mr Young, a local dairy farmer, said he wasn’t overly concerned that the State Government had left the door open for the successful bidder to take the overhead route.
“Given the work the PGOG (Power Grid Option Group) has done, I’m very confident that they will come up with a figure that is comparable,” he said.
“I think the government had to leave that out (underground requirement) just in case there is a blow out with the cost.”
Mr Hobson paid tribute to the work of PGOG chairman Alan Fraser, who worked tirelessly to get the State Government to consider an underground power option. “If it does go underground then it’s an absolute tribute to Alan Fraser,” Mr Hobson said. “He should be named citizen of the year, not just in Cardinia, but South Gippsland and Bass Coast shires as well.”