09 July 2013

Oyster farmers face abatement notices over bond failures

Officials says they have been left with little choice but to ‘reluctantly’ issue abatement notices to more than 40 Northland marine farmers for failing to lodge bonds designed to spare ratepayers the cost of cleaning up abandoned oyster farms.

For several years, the Northland Regional Council has been attempting to reach a mutually acceptable solution with oyster farmers to protect roughly 300 hectares of public space occupied by the almost 100 oyster farms involved.

Colin Dall, the council’s Consents/Monitoring Senior Programme Manager, says the 43 farmers involved are operating from Parengarenga Harbour in the north to the Kaipara Harbour in the south.

Mr Dall says under the terms of their resource consents – which were comprehensively reviewed in 2009 and 2010 – the oyster farmers are required to lodge a bond of $9000 for each hectare of developed farm.

However, by obtaining a bank guaranteed bond, the average oyster farmer with about 4ha of farm structures would need to pay as little $360 annually – roughly $90 per farmed hectare.

The bonds are designed to help cover the extensive costs of attempting to clean up farms if they are abandoned by their owners or left in a derelict state, but oyster farmers have repeatedly cited tough financial times as a key factor in the ongoing delays to lodging them.

Mr Dall says in response, the regional council – which has tried to be as accommodating as possible in a bid to reach a mutually acceptable outcome – has now extended the deadline for bond lodgement three times over several years.

“The last two extensions were given to allow the New Zealand Oyster Industry Association time to develop a dedicated industry clean-up fund as its proposed alternative to a bond for each consent.”

Councillors had in April this year agreed to a ‘final’ deadline of 30 June for an acceptable industry-arranged alternative to be implemented, but that deadline had now passed with no resolution in sight.

The council is poised to this week issue abatement notices giving oyster farmers another three months to lodge the required bonds (or an acceptable alternative) – or face further enforcement action, including daily fines of up to $750.

Mr Dall says while councillors have some sympathy for the oyster farmers’ position and were reluctant to take formal enforcement action, they had a wider duty to all Northlanders to ensure commercial operators using public space in coastal areas left it in an environmentally acceptable state.

“Northland has already had issues with a number of oyster farms which have required expensive clean ups, including about 20 in the Waikare Inlet alone. Farms like these which fall into disrepair and/or are abandoned can have a number of adverse environmental effects and also pose a navigation hazard,” Mr Dall says.

He says it is not unreasonable for the region’s ratepayers to expect that those who were gaining commercial benefit from what was effectively exclusive use of public space should pay to clean it up if things went wrong.

He says given most Northland oyster farms included only several hectares of actual structures that would require a bond – and that could be as little as $90 per hectare annually – the costs were not prohibitive.

ENDS

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