Please reject Middle Creek Energy Hub
178 Submissions to date
The Queensland State Minister has called for public input on the Middle Creek Energy Hub wind development. This is your opportunity to voice your opinion and reject this harmful development.
Submissions close: 5:00pm on 19 May 2025
ABOVE: A map of proposed and in-development wind farms in QLD. Middle Creek Energy Hub is demarcated.
Here are the facts:
Where:
10km east of Wandoan in the Western Downs, Southern Queensland.
What:
The proposed Middle Creek Energy Hub is located within the Western Downs Renewable Energy Zone, a landscape that has been targeted by wind companies and now looks set to extinguish the lives of threatened bats, birds and raptors.
183 wind turbines are proposed to be installed across a 28,418 ha Project Area.
IMPACTS TO LANDSCAPE:
A BESS, substation, access roads up to 50m wide, concrete batching plant, temporary offices, fencing and other infrastructure will also be installed. Clearing of 75m wide will be required across streams.
CONCERNS:
1,456.02 ha clearance will result in critical habitat loss for these threatened species:
– White-throated Needletail (Vulnerable, Migratory)
– Koala (Endangered)
– Greater Glider (southern and central) (Endangered)
– Boggomoss Snail (Critically Endangered)
Once cleared, weeds will gain a foothold in previously uncleared areas and feral species can gain easy access. This can impact native wildlife living near the project area.
10 roads between the Leichhardt highway and the site will need to be upgraded and widened, destroying any habitat along the verges of roads and creating noise, dust and traffic hold-ups.
Two regional biodiversity corridors run along Downfall Creek and Roche Creek that are within the wind development site – these will be impacted.
The impacts from so many wind turbines to aerial species such as raptors, birds and bats will be significant.
The low frequency sound of so many wind turbines may impact species, including koalas, in unanticipated ways, driving them from the area or interfering with breeding cycles.
Sediment and petrochemicals from heavy vehicles may run off into streams onsite, polluting the water for aquatic species.
Roads will be intensively utilised for the many months it will take to complete the wind project, impacting road users and increasing the chance of wildlife being killed by vehicles.
This massive development should not proceed, particularly as this region is set to host numerous vast wind developments. The cumulative impacts to wildlife are too great.
WHO LIVES HERE?
Painted honeyeater (Vulnerable)
White-throated Needletail (Vulnerable, Migratory)
Greater Glider (southern and central) (Endangered)
Koala (Endangered)
Short-beaked Echidna
Boggomoss Snail (Adclarkia dawsonensis) (Critically Endangered)
Threatened ecological communities will also be impacted. The wind farm site contains some areas of regulated vegetation of Category B (remnant), Category C (high-value regrowth) and Category R (regrowth watercourse and drainage feature area).
Above: Koala habitat is highlighted in blue. The blue dots indicate where Koalas were seen.
The proposed Middle Creek wind development should be rejected by the State Government as it clearly undermines environmental interests of the State.
Koalas are known to live here but will lose 10.31 ha of breeding and foraging habitat plus 1,428.03 ha of dispersal habitat. This is a catastrophic impact to a beloved and iconic species clinging for life.
The land-parcel is also visited by migrating flocks of beautiful White-throated Needletail, aerial acrobats and speed racers of the sky. Remarkably, numerous flocks of this threatened bird were seen on the site, including a flock of 220. They will lose 1,456.02 ha of foraging habitat and 6.76 ha of roosting habitat. If the birds roost onsite near wind turbines, there is an extremely high chance they will be killed by turbine strike. They are highly likely to die as they soar high above the canopy at the same level as turbine rotor sweep.
SENSITIVE CONTENT WARNING: Video above shows the aftermath of a White-throated Needletail hitting a wind turbine in Harris Island, Scotland in 2013.
Go deeper
Aerial Impacts
The cumulative impact of so many wind turbines on aerial species, colonising the sky in this region in SE Qld, will lead to gradual depletion of birds, bats and raptors, including threatened species. The Middle Creek Energy Hub is near the proposed Wandoan wind farm and the Bungaban wind farm.
Which other threatened species could be harmed or killed?
If approved, the Middle Creek Energy Hub may also impact:
Corben’s Long-eared Bat – Vulnerable
Boggomoss Snail – Critically Endangered
Greater Glider (southern and central) – Endangered
Squatter Pigeon (southern and central) – Vulnerable
Dunmall’s Snake – Vulnerable
Grey Snake – Endangered
South-eastern Glossy Black-cockatoo – Vulnerable
Diamond Firetail – Vulnerable
Yellow-bellied Glider (south-eastern) – Vulnerable
Brigalow (Acacia harpophylla dominant and co-dominant) TEC – Endangered
Poplar Box Grassy Woodland on Alluvial Plains TEC – Endangered
Vulnerable White-throated Needletail particularly at risk
Flocks up to 220 of Vulnerable migratory White throated Needletails were spotted onsite by ecologists. They are prone to dying from turbine strike as they fly at the same height as the wind turbine rotor. They will fly into the path of wind turbines and die. The ecologists consider that the project wont have a significant impact on the White Throated Needletail population but we question why. It’s entirely plausible that flocks could be killed.
By JJ Harrison – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=128875728
Sound ‘footprint’ never considered
This is a vast industrial scale wind farm by any estimation and failure to mention the sound footprint of the operational wind farm is a grave oversight. Impacts of infrasound from spinning turbines on mammals and other wildlife is uncertain and no science has been done in Australia on this. However, it appears from preliminary research conducted by biologist Roger Martin in FNQ that Koala mating calls may be masked by the noise of spinning turbines and that the noise of wind turbines in general may repel them from an area.
Threatened species impacts not sufficiently considered
Ecologists have downplayed the impact from the development on Koalas and White-throated Needletails. When considering Koala habitat that will be lost, they will lose 1,428.03 ha of dispersal habitat which is considerable. Large flocks of White-throated Needletails were seen numerous are at high risk of colliding with wind turbines and have roosting habitat within the site.
Cumulative impacts not duly considered
Aerial impact of 186 turbines in an energy zone already slated for more vast wind farms will be considerable. Birds, raptors and bats will be regularly killed.
Bats, our remarkable pollinators, will undoubtedly die in high numbers
Bats hold their own significant place in our ecosystem. They are key pollinators and control insect populations. They will likely be killed by the hundreds, if not thousands by the wind turbines. They can die horrific deaths from turbine strike or barotrauma. See what we discovered at Kaban wind farm in FNQ here:
We are extremely concerned that even species that are not technically threatened will become so once this wind farm, and the other industrial scale wind farms in proximity become operational. The impact to avian life overall is an alarming prospect and once the turbines commence spinning, damage will be very difficult to reverse.
Above: Injured Little Red Flying Fox found underneath a turbine at Kaban wind farm FNQ. Due to the horrific extent of its injuries it had to be euthanised.
Above: dead Northern Freetail bat found underneath a turbine at Kaban wind farm.
Set to abut 2 State Forests
Middle Creek Energy Hub will be sited next to Cooaga State Forest and Barakula State Forest. Wildlife will be disrupted and birdlife and bat life killed by the wind turbines. Gliders will lose connectivity with trees being destroyed. They need to be able to glide between trees. Moving on the ground will expose them to predators. Populations of gliders may be siloed in small clusters of vegetation, unable to move to habitat further afield. This is disastrous for the species and will impact feeding and breeding cycles, impacting the overall local population.
Important threatened species habitat will be destroyed
The land parcel and project area contains important microhabitats that support threatened wildlife including tree hollows, logs, leaf litter and debris, rocks, standing water, burrows and rock crevices. Tree hollows are now endangered all throughout Australia because of bushfires and land clearing. Tree hollows only occur within mature trees at least 80 years old. They provide shelter to Greater Gliders and other possums and glider species, parrot species, owls and other wildlife seeking refuge. The proponent pledges to replace every destroyed tree hollow with a Glider Box: we say this is a. unrealistic b. will not be independently audited, c. where will the Glider Boxes be installed? The remaining landscape is already host to wildlife and is already “inhabited”. Tree hollows are homes, and destroying a home and replacing it with a nest box nearby does not mean a now homeless and traumatised Glider family will find it. Wildlife do not cope well with habitat disruption or translocation. It all spells death, slowly or quickly, for reliant species, but this will occur ‘out of sight and out of mind’.