Environmental regulation of the Tasmanian salmon industry is an important part of protecting and enhancing Tasmania's environment. Environmental regulation of the salmon industry is becoming more rigorous as the industry continues to grow.
Who does the regulating?
The EPA regulates the environmental impacts of salmon farming in Tasmania.
The EPA receives environmental monitoring reports from salmon companies in relation to environmental performance, as well as undertaking its own monitoring work to assess environmental compliance.
The work they do is informed by legislation, specifically the
Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act 1994.
The EPA provides information and a large number of reports
on the EPA website.
How do we regulate salmon farms?
Companies have to meet environmental standards that are set out in
Environmental Licences and management controls identified in
Marine Farming Development Plans.
Benchmarking of environmental monitoring and regulation
The Tasmanian Government has developed a Tasmanian Salmon Industry Scorecard, which benchmarks the State’s environmental monitoring regime against international regulatory practices for salmon aquaculture.
Regulating Feed
All companies must report feed usage data to Government on a quarterly basis. This information is used by the EPA to regulate nitrogen emissions and to inform environmental monitoring requirements for the industry.
Water Quality
The EPA monitors water quality in a number of newer salmon farming areas. The monitoring program helps Government to understand whether water quality changes within an area over time once salmon farming occurs there.
Reports on monitoring results can be found on the EPA website for:
Storm Bay
Okehampton Bay
BEMP Annual Reporting
The Broadscale Environmental Monitoring Program (BEMP) provides a detailed assessment of environmental conditions in various Marine Farm Development Plan areas.
The BEMP monitors trends for key environmental parameters, allowing assessment of the environmental impacts of salmon farming.
A variety of sites within a Marine Farm Development Plan area will be monitored all year. The reports can be found on the EPA website:
D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Huon River
Okehampton Bay and the Mercury Passage
Tasman Peninsula and Norfolk Bay
Storm Bay
Other Monitoring
A range of other monitoring occurs across salmon farming areas. This monitoring also varies from plan area to plan area. More information about the different types of monitoring that occurs can be found on the
EPA website.