Contamination fears over construction of wind farm next to Fiskville

The plumes of dust started drifting over the paddocks as work started on a $300 million project to build a 107-turbine wind farm in the countryside surrounding the Country Fire Authority's former Fiskville training college.

Neighbours Michelle Evans (left) and Janene Skidmore
will each have wind turbines about a kilometre from their
back fences in Mount Wallace. An existing wind farm is
already in operation nearby.

As digging began last year on the deep footings for turbines that will stand 171 metres high, it stirred up dirt that was carried off by the wind.

The dust could be seen for miles. And it had some neighbours worried. Tests at nearby Beremboke Creek in 2012 and 2015 had confirmed the presence of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl – the toxic chemicals known as PFAS and used in products including firefighting foam – on land near Fiskville.

The contamination of properties downstream from Fiskville was revealed during a 2016 parliamentary inquiry into the academy.

Read the story from The Age by Debbie Cuthbertson - “Contamination fears over construction of wind farm next to Fiskville.”