Swimmers, boaties muscle out Marlborough mussel farms in prime recreational spots
10 Jan, 2021 01:58 AM
5 minutes to read
There are about 590 marine farms in Marlborough. Photo / Chloe Ranford, LDR
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By Chloe Ranford, Local Democracy Reporter
Plans to free up prime swim spots in the Marlborough Sounds could force mussel farms further from shore.
Marine farmers will need to leave another swimming pool s worth of space between their farms and the shoreline under the region s new aquaculture rules, in what one report estimates will cost up to $3000 a farm.
The change is one of several proposed under the region s new aquaculture chapter, released in November, almost a year after the rest of the Marlborough District Council s new environment plan was published.
CHLOE RANFORD/LDR
The final chapter in Marlborough s new environment plan was released last month, almost a year after the rest.
Plans to free up prime swim spots in the Marlborough Sounds could force mussel farms further from shore. Marine farmers will need to leave another swimming pool’s worth of space between their farms and the shoreline under the region s new aquaculture rules, in what one report estimates will cost up to $3000 a farm. The change is one of several proposed under the region’s new aquaculture chapter, released in November, almost a year after the rest of the Marlborough District Council’s new environment plan was published.
When the Marlborough District Council finished writing its new environment plan in June 2016, it had no idea a one-in-5000-year quake would strike near Kaikōura five months later.
An area of the Marlborough coastline affected by the Kaikōura earthquake.
Photo: Chloe Ranford
It had already drawn a line separating land and sea - and the rules for each - when the quake raised the region s coastline out of the ocean, in some places up to 6 metres.
Four years on, and almost a year after finalising Marlborough s environment masterplan , the line had still not been changed.
Several rugby pitch fields worth of land along Marlborough s east coast is still zoned coastal marine - an area where ships can legally anchor and residents can surf, sail or swim.
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