The Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, has approved a massive expansion of fish farming at Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania’s west.
Salmon farmers Tassal, Huon Aquaculture and Petuna are expanding their marine leases in the harbour to nine square kilometres.
The companies won State Government approval for the expansion in May and say a Federal Government review has made almost no changes to the plan.
Tassal managing director Mark Ryan says the move will allow his company to vastly increase production but he cannot yet say how many new staff his company will employ.
“At the moment, until we’ve got board approval for it, we’re not going to go through all the numbers other than to say we’ll significantly increase our production coming out of Macquarie Harbour,” he said.
“Ultimately it could be as much as double.”
State Resources Minister Bryan Green says the expansion will provide an economic boost to the region.
“[There will be] 100-odd people employed through construction … and ensuring that $88 million-odd is spent in this important industry for the state,” he said.
West coast Mayor Darryl Gerrity has told ABC Radio’s Country Hour program the expansion will benefit local engineering companies that already work with mining companies.
“This will be a bonus for them because there will be work in building these farms and the premises where they go, so there will be other jobs locally rather than just the fish farm,” he said.
Environment groups argued the project was unsustainable and could damage ecosystems in the nearby world heritage area.
Alderman Gerrity believes the pollution concerns have been overstated.
“We’ve lived with salmon farms on the west coast now in Macquarie Harbour for 20 years and the community doesn’t see a big problem with the expansion,” he said.
“But I think this will probably be the max it could take.”
A conservation group is calling for strict environmental monitoring.
Rebecca Hubbard from Environment Tasmania says the impact on marine life and ecosystems needs to be independently monitored.
“We’re yet to see whether the conditions that have been applied by the Federal Government will be tight enough and strict enough to ensure that considerable environmental impact is not allowed to occur before it’s caught by the managers and by the government,” she said.
