Media release – Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection (TAMP), 16 February 2021
Local community calls on Minister to explain lack of adequate industrial salmon farming noise regulations
The Killora Community Association on Bruny Island is calling on Minister Guy Barnett to explain why after twenty years of noise complaints most salmon farms have few or no noise regulations.
“It gets worse every year and it’s got out of hand,” says the association’s Gerard Castles. “None of their factory ships – which are far too big for the narrow coastal waterways they operate in – are subject to any noise regulations at all.”
“They can make as much noise as they like on two huge floating feedlots in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and no one can do anything about it.”
The state’s peak marine watchdog, the Tasmanian Alliance for Marine Protection (TAMP) is backing the community’s demands to bring the salmon industry into line with regulations that apply on land.
“We’re right behind the people of Bruny Island who’ve had a gutful after two decades of noise that just keeps getting worse,” says TAMP co-chair, Peter George.
“It’s astonishing that every other Tasmanian business has to live by noise regulations but Tassal and Huon Aquaculture just get away with it.
“It’s truly a rogue industry with political mates to protect it – and you really have to ask why that is.”
The Killora Community Association is launching a campaign to shame the biggest producer, Tassal, into action and to demand new regulations that impose real noise limits that reflect the local conditions. The campaign is supported by TAMP.
“Noise and light pollution are real issues that afflict coastal communities everywhere the salmon producers are – from Bruny to the Huon River and estuary and on the Tasman Peninsular. Tassal and Huon Aquaculture are both serial offenders,” Mr George says.
After almost two decades of fighting Tassal over noise, Killora Community Association’s Gerard Castles has now been told that two big leases in the Channel have no noise regulations attached to them at all. (See attached letter)
Mr. Castles said, “You can’t run a power drill before 10 in the morning on a Sunday but you can run a heavily industrialised salmon feedlot as loud as you want in the middle of the night.
“What do we have to do? Turn up outside Mark Ryan’s home [Tassal CEO] at midnight in a tinny with loudspeakers blasting compressor noise to make the point that loud noise isn’t any more acceptable because it comes from a Tassal feedlot.
“The cumulative noise is extraordinary and unacceptable. It includes washing diseased fish, oxygenating the feedlots, net towing, noisy farm vessels, factory ships ploughing up the Channel day and night, net washing and seal deterrents that involve what sounds like shot gun blasts as Tassal fire off so-called ‘seal bombs’.
“We’ve engaged with Tassal for almost 20 years but the noise gets worse and worse every summer.”
The EPA’s director, Wes Ford wrote to the Killora Community Association this month about two big Tassal leases in the Channel stating:
I can advise that:
• Environmental Licence 9873/2 for Simmonds Point does not contain any noise limits or other conditions relating to noise.
• Environmental Licence 9869/2 for The Sheppards does not contain any noise limits or other conditions
TAMP’s Peter George says, “Let this be a warning to all the small communities around Tasmania’s coast where the Government wants salmon producers to expand operations: the Government and EPA will not act to protect the rights of local residents.
“The EPA response to a raft of complaints about noise issues over summer makes it clear Tassal can make whatever noise it likes while community complaints are ignored. The regulator and government are literally running a protection racket for the big salmon companies.”
TAMP contends that Tassal might well be prosecuted for causing “environmental nuisance” under section 53(2) of the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act [https://www.legislation.tas.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-1994-044#GS53@EN].
