MainStream Aquaculture denies wrongdoing over alleged overflow and practices at barra farm

A barramundi farm north of Port Douglas is fighting allegations that water from its ponds was making its way into local creeks and that it was operating without the appropriate approval.

MainStream Aquaculture managing director and chief executive Boris Musa (left) leaves the Cairns Magistrates Court. Picture: Brendan Radke

An aquaculture operation north of Port Douglas is accused of discharging water from its ponds into nearby creeks and failing to rectify the issue when placed on notice, a court has been told.

MainStream Aquaculture and its managing director and chief executive officer, Boris Musa, are each facing eight charges brought by the Department of Environment and Science over alleged activities between September 2022 and March 2023.

Yesterday Mr Musa pleaded not guilty in Cairns Magistrates Court to all charges on behalf of himself and the company.

Prosecuting for the Department of Environment and Science, barrister Saul Holt KC said the company did not have the appropriate approvals to farm barramundi and was adding copper sulfate, a prescribed substance, to several ponds.

Mr Holt played a number of videos to the court made by department inspectors that allegedly showed overflow from ponds flowing into channels and drains, then into nearby Muddy Creek and Packers Creek.

MainStream Aquaculture managing director and chief executive Boris Musa leaves the Cairns Magistrates Court. Picture: Brendan Radke

The company is accused of five counts of unlawfully depositing a prescribed substance in local waterways, two of failing to comply with a directions notice and one of carrying out an environmentally relevant activity without authority.

Mr Musa is facing eight counts of failing to ensure a corporation complies with the Environmental Protection Act.

Mr Saul said MainStream Aquaculture ran barramundi farms throughout Australia and the world and, after acquiring the prawn farm on the Captain Cook Highway, had begun stocking it with barramundi before the appropriate environmental authority was in place.

He said their application to add in barramundi to the site was rejected by the department.

“Aquaculture is a prescribed environmentally relevant activity … but there are different kinds of activities within that ERA so crustaceans are categorised separately to other freshwater marine organisms,” Mr Saul said.

He said crustaceans had a “lower aggregate environmental score”.

Mr Holt also said water from the barramundi ponds should have been contained, but was making its way into local waterways via the prawn ponds.

MainStream Aquaculture chief executive Boris Musa pleaded not guilty in Cairns Magistrates Court to eight charges of failing to ensure a corporation complies with the Environmental Protection Act.

Defence barrister for MainStream Aquaculture and Mr Musa, Jeffrey Hunter KC said one of the issues that would be disputed at the hearing was the appropriateness of the location where water samples were taken to measure copper sulfate levels.

“The evidence will be this is not a case of the defendant simply dumping vast quantities of copper sulfate into the water, rather this was something that was done on a considered basis and the reason for the significant quantities that were used was because of the particular quality of the water into which the copper sulfate was put,” Mr Hunter said.

He said the water samples should have been taken further away than the discharge point.

The trial continues before Magistrate Jakub Lodziak.

Originally published as MainStream Aquaculture denies wrongdoing over alleged overflow and practices at barra farm