Locals want an immediate stop to sewage and fish waste processing on the Plenty River

Derwent Valley residents are demanding answers and action as more fish in the historic Salmon Ponds hatchery die after last month’s waste spill. Find out what authorities have to say>>

• ‘A large plume of sewage is heading your way’
• Reason behind ‘gut-wrenching’ fish deaths revealed

DERWENT Valley locals are demanding answers about a wastewater spill into the Plenty River last month, as more fish at the historic Salmon Ponds die as a result of the contamination.

The primary industries department said that since the initial incident on September 23, 120,000 brown trout fry, 13,000 rainbow trout fry, 43 brook trout brood stock and 28 display fish have died.

“The increase in brown trout fry losses above those initially reported is attributed to delayed mortality from stress,” a spokeswoman said.

The Salmon Ponds tourist site remains open for business as normal.

Polluted water in the Plenty River on September 23 2020, collected by a local resident.

Local fly fisherman Ken Orr, who is vice chair of the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party Tasmania, said residents and other recreational users of the river wanted the company that is being investigated over the wastewater spill to be stripped of its permit to process human and fish waste on the site.

“The Plenty River itself is home to native galaxias, native grayling and platypus and the Salmon Ponds are hugely historically significant,” Mr Orr said.

“Creating a s**t farm 2.3km upstream from the ponds is not protecting it.”

Derwent Valley fly fishing guide Ken Orr, who is vice chair of the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party Tasmania.

A permit was granted by the Derwent Valley Council to establish a composting facility at 47 Plenty Valley Rd, Glenfern in 2009 to process paper sludge from Norske Skog as well as pine bark and green waste.

However, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) granted a variation to the permit in 2014 allowing the property owner, Jenkins Hire Pty Ltd, to receive human sewage sludge and liquid fish waste at the site.

Repeated attempts to contact Jenkins Hire have been unsuccessful, but an EPA spokeswoman said the company had taken action in response to a clean-up notice issued on September 25, two days after the foul smelling sludge was reported by residents along the Plenty River.

File photo of brown trout fingerlings at the Salmon Ponds at Plenty.

A neighbouring resident questioned why the EPA, which issued the 2014 permit variation, was also the body investigating the company.

The EPA said there were “no unresolved compliance issues associated with the Jenkins Composting Facility near Plenty”.

“EPA’s current investigation is not focused on the level 2 composting activity, rather on the alleged dumping of a controlled waste on private land,” the agency’s spokeswoman said.

She declined to release the results of water testing conducted after the incident on September 23.

“As the EPA investigation is ongoing, it would not be appropriate to provide further comment at this early stage,” the spokeswoman said.

Mr Orr said the Salmon Ponds was the oldest trout hatchery in the Southern Hemisphere, while the Plenty River itself also had outstanding historical significance as the oldest recorded fly fishing site.

“The facility should never have been allowed on that site,” he said.

Mr Orr called on TasWater and other agencies to immediately stop delivering controlled waste to the site.

“And we are calling for some results from the testing and some transparency,” Mr Orr said.

“Nothing has improved in my opinion. The whole site is waterlogged and saturated and we still have run-off going into the Plenty River. At the moment it is getting sort of diluted because the river is in flood.”

Originally published as Locals want an immediate stop to sewage and fish waste processing on the Plenty River