Aboriginal rock shelter destroyed while building renewable energy zone, consortium says sorry

The Spanish-led consortium charged with building one of the major renewable energy zones in NSW has apologised after admitting to the destruction of an Aboriginal rock shelter.

The incident happened during construction of an access track on private property to build power lines for the Central West renewable energy zone, according to Acerez, the consortium of Spanish companies Acciona and Grupo Cobra, and local network operator Endeavour Energy, that is building the REZ.

An Aboriginal rock shelter which had previously been identified in the project’s planning approval was “damaged beyond recovery”, according to the company’s CEO, Steve Masters. He admitted that the “processes required to protect the rock shelter at this location” were not fully implemented.

“We are deeply sorry,” said Masters.

“We apologise without reservation to the Traditional Owners and to the local community. The loss of this rock shelter is permanent and nothing we say can undo that.

“We have been contacting the Traditional Owners directly and will work with them to determine how this site and its story can be acknowledged and honoured from here.”

Work was immediately paused on building access tracks once the destruction of the rock shelter was identified, and Acerez has begun an internal investigation into the circumstances. The NSW department of planning, housing, and infrastructure has also launched an investigation.

“We are working with all relevant stakeholders to understand how this happened and to prevent this from occurring anywhere else on this project,” said Masters.

New South Wales environment minister Penny Sharpe said in a statement to journalists that she was “furious” about incident, declaring “it should never have happened and is completely unacceptable.”

Similarly, EnergyCo, the government agency responsible for delivering the state’s renewable energy zones, also told journalists that they were “extremely disappointed” and that “ACEREZ has failed to conduct its works with the agreed management plans and heritage protection measures.

“EnergyCo has alerted Acerez of its failure to comply with its contractual obligations,” said an EnergyCo spokesperson.

According to the development assessments and approvals filed with EnergyCo, ACEREZ was aware of 46 Aboriginal sites including eight rockshelters that were at risk of direct impact from construction works which, if any harm was to befall them, would result in complete loss of value.

Efforts to avoid and minimise impacts on Aboriginal sites was set out in the environmental impact statement (EIS), which acknowledged that the risk of damage to “37 Aboriginal sites would primarily be caused by ground disturbance which is conservatively assumed to occur throughout the construction area.

“However, in practice substantial avoidance of heritage sites would be achieved during detailed design through careful siting of the transmission line towers and other project infrastructure.”

At least in this one instance, it would appear that such “careful siting” was not carried out properly.

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