Talks over mussel farm as deadline on gear expires

By TONY GEE

Northland Regional Council and Maori marine farm trust representatives are to meet again in Whangarei today as a deadline expires to remove illegal mussel farm equipment in Whangaruru Harbour.

Te Au O Morunga Marine Farm Trust has had a council abatement notice extended until today requiring it to remove buoys, anchors, ropes and spat lines put down more than a month ago near the harbour entrance off Oakura Bay inside Motutara Island.

Equipment supporting another farm further north in the harbour has been removed.

Neither site, covering a total of about 3ha, has resource consents or a mussel farming permit.

A two-year Government-imposed moratorium on setting up new marine farms around the New Zealand coast is also still in force.

Regional council chairman Mark Farnsworth described a meeting on Friday with councillors, staff and trust representatives as "introductory". Another is planned today.

"There are huge issues involved ... We want this done properly," he said.

Whangaruru North residents and ratepayers presented a 144-signature petition against the farm venture to the council last week.

They want it removed from the harbour because the venture is illegal and is said to occupy a "completely inappropriate" place for such a farm.

But the trust says Treaty of Waitangi issues are involved and there is frustration with the moratorium on new marine farming which allows regional councils, rather than the Crown under treaty partnership obligations, to identify specific coastal areas for fish farms.

Regional councillor Stan Semenoff said that although he did not agree with the way the trust had set up the mussel farm at Whangaruru, he believed the council should try to help the group to reach its goals.