Huon slams EPA chief over limits

ONE of Australia’s largest salmon farming companies has criticised Tasmania’s environmental regulator for being “late to the party” on reducing fish stock limits at Macquarie Harbour.

Huon Aquaculture executive director Frances Bender has hit out at the state’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), which last week flagged a reduction in biomass levels.

Last week, EPA director Wes Ford said the harbour’s fish stock maximum would be cut from 16,000 tonnes to 9000.

But Ms Bender said that figure simply reflected the amount of fish in the harbour.

“Mr Ford is late to the party. The biomass has been reduced by mother nature — a cumulation of disease, poor environmental practises — that’s where the numbers are drawn from,’’ she said.

“The EPA has not bought the biomass back in this draft determination. They’ve just added up the numbers that we’ve still got alive.”

Mass fish deaths have in recent years plagued the picturesque harbour on the West Coast, part of which lies inside a World Heritage Area. Ms Bender said an outbreak of pilchard orthomyxovirus, or POMV, had killed a “significant” number of fish over summer.

“If we don’t manage the biosecurity practices — and the horse may have already bolted — we may actually have a scenario where we fallow the harbour,” she said.

“If the disease is still endemic when we put the fish in the water up there (over winter) that’s when we’ll suffer the highest mortalities.”

Huon Aquaculture, which along with Petuna and Tassal has fish pens in the harbour, has brought action against a 2012 decision by the federal environment minister to allow farming expansion.

Huon Aquaculture claims the decision has led to environ- mental degradation and was invalid.

The federal court hearing wrapped up on Monday, with justice Duncan Kerr reserving his decision.

Petuna and Tassal are parties in the case and support the minister’s decision. Huon Aquaculture’s legal proceedings, launched early last year, followed an Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) report that found “dead zones” existed in the harbour.

An updated IMAS report, released last week, said oxygen levels in the harbour remained very low but there was “capacity” for recovery.

The EPA said Mr Ford would not comment further on the biomass until he had received representations from the three salmon farming companies and made a decision.

Mr Ford is late to the party ... the biomass has been reduced by mother nature

— FRANCES BENDER