Transport was the key question on residents' minds as EnergyAustralia hosted an information session on its Energy Recovery Project in Lithgow on Wednesday, November 27.
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This session was one of four held around the region, to allow residents to ask any questions or raise concerns they may have on the project.
The sessions' focus was on EnergyAustralia's proposed energy recovery project for Mt Piper power station, which would divert rubbish from landfill to be burnt at the station to generate electricity.
EnergyAustralia community relations lead Mick Hanly said they were in the middle of producing an environmental impact assessment that should be sent out to stakeholders in the next few days.
"Essentially the information today is making sure that everyone has the right details about what the project is and to give them a heads up that we are getting close to submitting the environmental impact statement and when that's submitted and the department has had a look they will put it out for public exhibition," he said.
"Then we will consult more."
Mr Hanly said that over the consultation period, residents had been asking similar questions.
"People want to know what type of technology will be used, whether it is safe, and transport is probably the biggest one," he said.
"A lot of people say 'can it be trained up?', and when you look at the economic viability of it, it's only a small plant compared to what could be developed... the plant can take 250,000 tonnes of fuel, whereas to bring it up by train, economically it would need to be about a million tonnes.
"So we looked at the options and bringing it up by truck is the only way at this stage, that doesn't mean we won't investigate other opportunities down the track but for right now that's the chosen way."
Mr Hanly said his next step would be to get residents to go to the website and look at the environmental impact assessment.
"We just want people to understand that we've been consulting and we will continue to consult. These are open sessions," he said.
"We want people to know it is still a $170 million project and will include 30 months of construction, creating 200-300 jobs, that doesn't include transport.
"Aspects of that is still to be finalised and that's the reason why we have consulted pretty heavily throughout this phase, so people's concerns are taken on board."
Mr Hanly said EnergyAustralia did a letter drop along the Castlereagh Highway to meet the residents and find out their concerns.
"It's been interesting to understand what they are currently facing and trying to alleviate some of their angst," he said.
Project manager Rodney Ward said he hoped these sessions could bring people together as they finalised the environmental impact assessment.
"We are basically just dotting the i's and crossing the t's and we hope to get it on display before Christmas," he said.
"It will go on display for six weeks and an extra two over Christmas, then we will get submissions from the public which we will respond to, and the department will review and then work on for another six months."
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