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Giant mussel farm given green light
By BERNARD CARPINTER
A NZ$20 million, Maori-backed venture in Hawke's Bay is set to lead New Zealand in a new form of mussel farming. Napier Mussels Ltd has finally won approval to go ahead with what will be by far New Zealand's biggest mussel farm, covering 2465 hectares in the open ocean north of Napier.
The Waipatiki Beach farm will increase the area of water in New Zealand allocated to mussel farming by a third.
Work on setting up the farm, which will eventually employ about 300 staff, is expected to begin later this year.
Ngati Kahungunu Inc is a partner in the venture with Sealord and New Zealand Sea Farms.
Work on the project began in 2000 and a resource consent was granted by Hawke's Bay Regional Council.
They were then held up by the government's moratorium on new aquaculture and by delays in getting final approval from the Fisheries Ministry.
Now the ministry has given the go-ahead and its senior fisheries management adviser, Scott Williamson, said yesterday several more applications for large, open-ocean farms were now being processed.
The Napier farm was the first of its type in New Zealand, Mr Williamson said.
The approval is subject to certain conditions, including a maximum of 243 mussel-bearing lines. It would take the company about 15 years to reach this figure.
If monitoring showed the farm was not adversely affecting the environment, the number of lines allowed could be increased.
The company will also have to monitor the sea floor for 250 metres beyond its boundaries, check how juvenile rock lobsters might be affected, and report on the incidence of the pest seaweed undaria.
Commercial fishermen in Hawke's Bay had opposed the mussel farm because it would stop them fishing in an area they had traditionally used.
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