Courier Mail News
Brendan O'Malley 24mar04
A SENIOR politician has called for a moratorium on development in northern parts of Moreton Bay until devastating blooms of toxic fireweed can be controlled.

Federal Member for Longman Mal Brough said proposed developments such a sand mine in Pumicestone Passage, the Sun Aqua fish farm and housing estates might worsen the blooms.

More than $250,000 was spent last summer scraping fireweed, or lyngbya, off beaches from Victoria Point to Bribie Island.

Popular beaches were closed for months, hurting local tourism businesses, and commercial fishing came to a standstill.

One fisherman was forced to quit the industry and turn to turf farming, while others had to buy bigger boats to fish outside the bay.

Mr Brough, who is also Employment Services Minister, said yesterday: "Lyngbya is driving away the fish, it's harming people, it's closing the beaches and I think it could get a lot worse very, very quickly unless we do something now.

"We need a moratorium on risky developments until the scientists can work out exactly what the problem is and what we should do.

"That's not to say there should be no development in future, far from it, but we need to recognise Pumicestone Passage in particular is very fragile and there are a lot of agricultural and domestic developments being proposed nearby."

He also feared Sun Aqua's plan to raise 2400 tonnes of fish a year off the southern end of Moreton Island could trigger blooms.

Sun Aqua director Julian Amos said he understood that forestry activities were a more likely suspect.

"The blooms are triggered by iron. We won't have any effect and the blooms are happening at the moment without any help from us," Dr Amos said.

Bribie Island fisherman Greg Savige blamed lyngbya for a massive drop in the number of trawlers working the northern part of the bay.

"There used to be 30 trawlers and now we're down to six," he said. "I haven't been able to work the area for three months and I've been forced to invest $150,000 on a bigger boat so I can fish for sand crabs outside the bay."


The Environmental Protection Agency's lyngbya website showed the summer bloom had largely died off because of recent heavy rains. It was now reduced to patches in the eastern bay.

Lyngbya normally contracted in autumn and winter, but outbreaks have been reported as late as Easter.

Healthy Waterways Partnership co-ordinator Eva Abal said the blooms were triggered by large amounts of iron, phosphorus and organic compounds washing off the land.

Dr Abal said although it was possible the fish farm could worsen the blooms that was less likely than other potential impacts it might have.

"The good news is that we have found you can prevent these (lyngbya food) sources from washing off the land if there are adequate buffers of bushland," she said.

The Rinker Group which has applied to mine sand on a former pine plantation adjacent to Pumicestone Passage could not be contacted for comment.