The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) currently regulates finfish farming at 10 marine farming leases in the Macquarie Harbour region. The current environmental licences for these leases expire on 30 November 2023.
After due consideration and in accordance with the requirements of the legislation the Director, EPA has decided to renew the environmental licences for all marine finfish farming leases within Macquarie Harbour for a 2-year period.
The Director will provide a statement of reasons to support his decision on the EPA website within 14 days. A document outlining matters considered under S42(T)(5) has been published on our Macquarie Harbour page.
In renewing the environmental licences, the Director also considered the need to set water quality interim default guideline values (DGVs) for the protection of aquatic ecosystems in accordance with the National Water Quality Management Strategy.
The interim DGVs will be used as a measure of success for maintaining and improving water quality in Macquarie Harbour by restoring dissolved oxygen levels to sustain a viable level of ecosystem health and support the recovery of the Maugean Skate.
Along with the existing conditions already imposed by the previous environmental licences, additional conditions have been included. These new conditions require the environmental licence holder to: –
Submit a Dissolved Oxygen Consumption Report, for the Director's approval, that includes calculations of the dissolved oxygen demand of finfish farmed at the marine farming lease.
Submit a Dissolved Oxygen Mitigation Plan, for the Director's approval, that outlines measures to offset or reduce the estimated dissolved oxygen demand resulting from the activity, and
Submit a Water Quality Monitoring Plan, for the Director's approval, that outlines a monitoring program designed to measure the success of the dissolved oxygen mitigation measures on water quality at and beyond the lease boundary and to demonstrate how the measures are going to work towards meeting the interim DGVs for water quality.
Further details regarding environmental licence conditions, including copies of environmental licences can be accessed from tomorrow via the EPA Regulated Premises layer on LISTmap
Decisions regarding the environmental licences for other regions of Tasmania will be released in the coming weeks on the Marine Environmental Licence Renewals page.
Published on:
30/11/2023