Broken Hill environmental groups have secured a number of vegetation clearing commitments from Essential Energy following a meeting about recent works on the city's outskirts and on private properties.
The meeting was held after landholders, Landcare Broken Hill and the Barrier Field Naturalist Club expressed concerns the company's contracted clearing works around powerlines had been excessive.
Landcare Broken Hill president Simon Molesworth said the works were the worst he had ever seen in western New South Wales.
Mr Molesworth said when he went to visit the cleared area it was up to 3-kilometres long and 22-metres wide.
"What we witnessed was the total destruction of what would've been thousands, but my estimate would've been tens of thousands, of plants," he said.
Mr Molesworth said one landholder in the area told him endangered trees had been earmarked for removal.
"And his view was that some of them had already been removed in the course of the clearing work," he said.
"Now Acacia Loderi, which is [also known as] Nelia, is an endangered ecological community under New South Wales law and it cannot be removed unless there has been a study, a management plan has been put in place, and the requisite approvals have been put in place."
Clearing, bushfire strategy
A spokeswoman for Essential Energy said the clearing works were part of the company's bushfire mitigation and network reliability strategy, which minimised power outages caused by trees coming into contact with the electricity network.
"The vegetation was cleared in an area classified as posing a moderate bushfire risk," she said.
Thorndale Station's Sandy Bright, who stopped the land clearing works reaching her property, said the work had gone too far.
"I can understand that they have to look after all the scrub around where their powerlines go because of the threat of bushfires," she said.
"But I think they've taken it to an extreme in our area."
'Decades of Damage'
Following Thursday's meeting with local environmental groups, Essential Energy said it would undertake enquiries into the vegetation clearing.
A spokeswoman said the company would now consult directly with landholders, Landcare Broken Hill and the Barrier Field Naturalist Club before removing trees or vegetation again.
She said the company would develop a new vegetation management strategy later this year, with input and review from the two groups.
Mr Molesworth said he was greatly heartened that senior managers of the company met with local groups and made those commitments.
But, he said, decades of damage had already been caused.
"It's very hard to remediate what's happened here on the land," he said.
"I feel very sorry for the landowners … they will now be in the direct path of windblown dust from areas that hitherto had vegetative cover."
