The TCT has called on Tassal’s Aquaculture Stewardship Council auditor to do a complete audit of Tassal’s Macquarie Harbour salmon farms and include all leases, including the most polluted area at the western end of Macquarie Harbour, the MF 266 Franklin pens which have created a dead zone 500 m across. Furthermore, they must ask serious questions about whether the regulator, the EPA, is doing its job correctly in letting Macquarie Harbour become so polluted.

The auditor SCS Global Services announced last week on its web site that it would not include site MF 266 Franklin in the audit (occurring this week) because it ‘will be subject to an extended fallow period and is therefore not within the scope of the audit’. Tassal obtained ASC certification in 2014 and this is one of the annual checks that is undertaken to ensure ongoing compliance with ASC sustainability criteria.

The TCT Director Peter McGlone said today that .’The reason given by SCS for omitting the Franklin farm from the audit is irrelevant and unacceptable and unless they reverse their decision the credibility of the audit and ASC will be in question’.

The TCT’s Marine Spokesperson, Jon Bryan, pointed out that ‘According to the recent Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies Technical Report, ‘Environmental Research in Macquarie Harbour- Interim Synopsis of Benthic and Water Column Conditions’, January 2017, a large area in the vicinity of the Franklin site appears to be seriously damaged by aquaculture, so this site should be part of any audit of Tassal’s aquaculture in Macquarie Harbour.

‘A thorough assessment of this area should let us know how current management and planning processes have failed to protect the environment as well as the industry itself.

‘This area may also provide insights into when, or if, the benthic environment in Macquarie Harbour is likely to recover from the type of mismanagement of the aquaculture industry that has clearly occurred in this area.’

‘This level of damage raises serious questions about the Government’s aquaculture planning process. How could the Marine Farming Planning Review Panel approve these operations in the first place and why is planning for the aquaculture industry quarantined from Tasmania’s mainstream planning process?

‘The Macquarie Harbour example completely undermines confidence in the Government’s planning process for aquaculture in Tasmania. It is of great concern that the Govnerment’s Marine Farming Planning Review Panel approved the Oakhampton site on the east coast and is currently undertaking the Government’s so-called independent review of that site.

The Franklin farm sits closest to the World Heritage Area and is the same farm that was subject to 14 non-compliance issues by the EPA after a survey late last year.

Mr McGlone added that ‘Rather than ignore the Franklin farm, the auditors need to ask whether the regulator, the EPA, has failed to step in soon enough to avert serious environmental damage.

‘Whether our environmental laws are too flexible or the EPA is failing to apply them properly are serious and appropriate issues for the auditors to investigate.

‘Either way, the environment is suffering and the auditors should issue a major non-compliance report in relation to the Franklin farm until it is confident these problems will not be repeated elsewhere in the harbour’.

Then TCT has long criticised the planning and permitting processes for fish farms in Tasmania. The TCT have repeatedly called for the Marine Farm Planning Review Panel to be abolished and a new system put in place that provides the community and environmental interests with greater say over decisions and a right of appeal.

The TCT wrote to SCS Global Services on the 9 February 2016 requesting that they include the Franklin farm in the upcoming audit but the company did not respond to the request. The TCT intends preparing a written submission to SCS Global Services and will attend the Hobart meeting SCS is holding from 5.00pm on the 16 February.

Tasmanian Conservation Trust Inc
Level2, 191-193 Liverpool St, Hobart 7000
Phone: +61 3 6234 3552
Web: www.tct.org.au
Peter McGlone Director, Tasmanian Conservation Trust