Pakenham Racing Club identity George Dore and chief executive Michael Hodge, Mal Wildes, Cardinia Shire mayor Bill Pearson, Eastern Victoria MP Johan Scheffer, Power Grid Option Group chairman Alan Fraser and Gordon Peck, pictured at the new Pakenham Racecourse, are excited about Premier John Brumby announcing his government’s preference for underground electricity to the desalination plant. 31532 Picture: Stewart Chambers
By Melissa Grant
A LONG running community campaign was last week bolstered when Premier John Brumby publicly stated his government’s preferred power option for the desalination plant was underground electricity.
Farmers, residents, councils and the Power Grid Option Group (PGOG) have been pressuring the State Government for almost a year to have the powerlines buried – and experienced their first major success on Thursday.
However, despite last Thursday’s announcement, campaigners aren’t popping open the champagne bottles just yet.
The State Government has left the door ajar for the successful project bidder to use the overhead powerline option.
“We’ve loosened the cork in the bottle of champagne – we haven’t fully got it in our favour,” Cora Lynn potato farmer Col Hobson said.
The State Government’s preference is to have an underground power supply route along the project’s pipeline alignment from the plant site to an existing overhead easement at Pound Road, Clyde North, where electricity would then travel to an exiting terminal station in Cranbourne.
Mr Brumby’s announcement came two days after he and Labor MPs Johan Scheffer and Luke Donnellen met with PGOG chairman Alan Fraser.
“The Government is now informing the Victorian community and the bidders that our preferred power option is an underground power supply along the transfer pipeline route,” Mr Brumby said on Thursday.
The decision has been welcomed by Pakenham Racing Club management, who were concerned the powerlines would run straight through their new racecourse site near Nar Nar Goon to a terminal station in Tynong.
However, there is still a possibility that overhead powerlines will be strung up on that site and through some of the Cardinia Shire’s best horticultural land.
“Should the bidders’ submissions on the underground option be too costly or there is a major constraint on the project we will be left with no choice but to power the plant through overhead powerlines,” Mr Brumby said.
But Mr Fraser was confident that underground power would be used for the $4 billion project.
“No contracts are signed at this stage but I think what the State Government is saying is that the bidding consortiums now have the clear signal that that’s the preferred position of the government,” he said.
“We are confident that our business case will withstand any scrutiny.
“When you look at the two costs and you must add onto the overhead the cost of the compulsory acquisition of that northerly grid corridor, plus the devaluation of the area, plus the possible devaluation of rating revenue – all of those things come into play but they’re not seen readily.”
Mr Fraser said the PGOG would be working with the bidding consortiums in the coming weeks to further inform them of their business case.
Cardinia Shire mayor Bill Pearson said he was pleased the State Government had not only stated its preference for underground power but had also changed the route.
“It makes our position all the more solid because it gets it out of the Dalmore peat,” he said.
“The Dalmore peat is 460sqkm of the best and few remaining horticultural areas in Victoria where we can grow vegetables of all shapes and sizes.”
