Maatheide Lommel EIA

Owing to the nature and location, this is a particularly important nature and bird conservation area, which doesn’t make it easy to integrate wind turbines. The project area and the surroundings are characterized by a variety of numerous open spaces and woods. The project area itself is determined by the presence of deep reclamation lakes and the Maatheide industrial area with a raised (brushwood) site and a fragmented number of deciduous and coniferous bushes and heather. The latter are mostly situated within future reclamations. In the broader surroundings of the project, these natural features are more concentrated. To the East and West of the project area, the Flemish Ecological Network area, Habitats Directive Area and Birds Directive Area prevail.

Given that the EIA examines the overall environmental impact of wind turbines in this area, regardless of whom the initiator is, abstraction is made of the existing concrete initiatives. These are generalised namely to three theoretical site locations. Around this there is always a zone marked out with a radius of 200 m, within which exact site location may fluctuate. In this way, the EIS covers every possible initiative for the siting of wind turbines on this part of the industrial estate.