OBVIOUS ANSWER
Your climate change denying columnist David Everist can't resist complaining about renewable energy at every opportunity (On the Wallaby, March 27).
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Last week he complained about Helen Haines' bill promoting community ownership of renewable energy projects, with the comment "a pertinent question could be what would happen if those investors should be exposed to losses, or even business failure?" The answer to this "pertinent question" is obvious, investors would lose, just as they would in any other form of investment that suffered a loss - including farming.
So far renewable energy projects are one of the safest investments in the country, but presumably eventually someone will make a loss. The sensible money though is still on renewables. Helen's Local Power Agency Bill if passed will provide for community ownership of their energy supply and our federal government should support it.
Graham Parton, Beechworth
KEEP OFF FARMERS' LAND
Tim Quilty can put the kettle on because I am going to come and camp on your front lawn unannounced. Let's see how he likes it. A person's home, or farm, is their castle. Farmers, tell them they're dreaming at the idea of campers turning up at properties wanting to camp.
Robert Ashworth, Wodonga
IN OTHER NEWS
CONGRATS TO COUNCIL
Wodonga councillors should be congratulated for 'doing their homework' and stopping development of the floodplain for inappropriate tourism. The floodplain is a work in progress. There were caravan parks there, all of which had to be abandoned because of floods.
Records of floods show there's been a major flood in every decade since the Hume Weir was completed in 1936, and it was thought the weir would alleviate the flooding. Most floods are caused by the Kiewa River which bypasses the weir.
There were two or more floods in some decades like the 1950s which had seven, the 1970s had seven, the 1980s had there, and 1990s six - according to Border Mail published figures, which only go to the year 2000.
Sometimes the floods inundated all the land between Wodonga and Albury and the only transport between the two cities was by train - sometimes special train services took our local workforce each way morning and night, like in October 1974 for three days.
The 1974 October floods (there was an earlier flood in January) reached Dean Street, Albury and closed Wodonga Place. 'Hundreds' of transport had to queue for the 3 days because they were not allowed to use the road over the weir wall.
I remember the 1974 flood well because Wodonga had no SES and Albury SES asked me to 'man' the Wodonga Creek bridge to prevent northbound traffic from using the causeway. I did that for two days.
The Border Mail's archives have hundreds of flood photos. One is of Mr McFarland standing in flood waters which surrounded his house. He is near a levee which was constructed around his house in 1974 by 30 Wodonga High School students, neighbours and volunteers who worked from Friday afternoon until 3am on Saturday. It kept 75cm of flood waters out of his house.
Aren't present plans to put a tourist park there?