This article is from page 6 of the 2014-02-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
WEST Clare Coastal Windpower has lodged plans for a windfarm to be constructed outside of Doonbeg, months after An Bord Pleanála rejected their previous proposal to build a controversial windfarm in the same area.
Plans were lodged with Clare County Council last week for the construction of nine electricity generating wind turbines at Carrowmore South, Einagh and Shragh – two kilometres south of Doonbeg village.
These wind turbines would have a central stack 85 metres high, with a rotor diameter of 82 metres.
This would give a total height of 126 metres or 413 feet – or well over half the height of the Cliffs of Moher.
Besides the turbines themselves, the new planning permission also includes the construction of hardstandings, a control building, an electrical compound, a permanent meteorological mast as well as associated site roads.
Last July, An Bord Pleanála refused planning permission for what was described as an “industrial scale” € 200 million wind farm in the same location as the current proposal.
This proposal included 45-turbine each of which were in excess of 400 feet.
The proposal caused a rift in the local community with 79 landowners in the area missing out on a significant cash payment to lease their land for the windfarm.
One of the grounds for refusal was the pollution threat the windfarm posed to Doonbeg river that contains 5,000 freshwater pearl mussels – the highest concentration of the species in Clare.
The original decision followed a six-day oral hearing into the wind farm in April of last year, at which the country’s foremost authority on the mussel, Dr Evelyn Moorkens, said that if nothing was done to secure the future of the mussel, the species would become extinct there over time.
A decision on the proposal is not due for some months.