Salmon farms’ pledge

Quarterly clean-ups planned for Macquarie Harbour

MACQUARIE Harbour’s salmon farmers will start conducting quarterly clean-ups in the waterway to reduce the amount of material — such as rope and polypipe — getting lost in the West Coast harbour.

Almost four tonnes of rubbish was collected from the harbour and the 80km of surrounding shoreline during the second big annual community clean-up in Strahan earlier this month.

Cradle Coast Natural Resource Management — which organised the event with funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program — said the statistics from the clean-up would be reviewed.

“But early indications from the aquaculture companies suggest they’ll be implementing quarterly harbour cleanups to reduce the volume of commercial fishing materials lost in the waterway,” project co-ordinator Anna Wind said.

A spokesman from Tassal yesterday said the salmon company was committed to increasing how frequently mar- ine debris was cleaned up in order to play its part in keeping the coastlines pristine.

“We work with other industry stakeholders and environmental groups, across all our operating areas to achieve this,” the spokesman said.

“The Macquarie Harbour clean-up working group convenes in May to discuss the approach towards greater frequency, which is something we are supportive of.”

A crew of 168 residents, school students, aquaculture employees, local government staff, volunteers and tourism industry members pitched over the five-day event.

“A clean-up of this scale wouldn’t be possible without different industries and community groups coming together, all focused on improving the health of this important marine environment,” Mrs Wind said.

“We had King River Rafting provide rafts and navigation expertise to help volunteers collect debris, which was then brought back to the sorting area by West Coast Wilderness Railway staff.

“Tassal, Huon Aquaculture, Petuna and West Coast Yacht Charters all had boats on the water, in addition to Conservation Volunteers, Wildcare members and local residents scouring the Harbour’s edge and nearby Ocean Beach.”

The 401 bags of hand-collected debris were weighed before the contents were sorted for recycling or sent to landfill.

Together, the clean-up teams removed 56 tyres and 750 metres of poly-pipe for recycling. There was also four cubic metres of plastic and glass containers and one cubic metre of aluminium cans. in