Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary proposal

The Executive Officer
Environment Conservation Council
3rd Floor, 250 Victoria Parade
EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002

Dear Sir or Madam, 

Comments on ECC’s ‘Marine Coastal
& Estuarine Investigation Draft Report
December 1999’   

Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc, a
federation of 15 conservation organizations around
Port Phillip, provides the following comments on the
above Draft Report, concentrating on the matters
relating to Port Phillip. 

We support and approve the proposals for the
recommended Point Cook Marine National Park A4, the
Jawbone and Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuaries B7 and
B8, and the Clifton Springs and Capel Sound Marine Special
Management Areas D7 and D8. We look forward to
constructive proposals for a Park or Parks at the
Heads. 

Recommended
Aquaculture Zones: We note that Section
7.4, ‘Principles for selection and management of
marine aquaculture areas’, includes four principles
we consider are each significantly infringed by the
proposals for the Beaumaris
E4, Mount Martha E5 and Dromana
E6 Aquaculture Zones, each of which we oppose.

Those three recommended large zones, which are
very large expansions of the small existing ‘Trojan
Horse’ sites there, are just off high coastlines
from which they are very visible. The same
objections do not apply to some of the proposed
sites on the west side of Port Phillip. These three
coastlines are widely regarded as having great
scenic and natural landscape and seascape values
that are obviously degraded by the unpleasant
industrial-type seascape created, both during the
day and night, by the alien element of large arrays
of aquaculture floats and markers. 

The three areas are also areas of high real
estate value and visitor interest, based on their
desirable location near fine coastal landscapes and
seascapes. That value and interest is much more
likely to be reduced than increased by the presence
of the proposed activities and related structures,
which would also significantly restrict and
interfere with the recreational boating that is an
economically important attraction in these areas. As
aquaculture requires access to landing areas,
interaction with transport vehicles there, and
parking of such vehicles, extra pressure would be
placed on the nearby coastlines, which are already
completely unsuitable for such extra pressure.

The present 6 ha Beaumaris
Aquaculture Zone shows the disadvantages these
operations cause, and its unsuitability is even more
marked, under your principles, because of its
proximity to the proposed Marine Sanctuary B8 and
the nearby Beaumaris
Fossil Site, of great visitor interest, which has
just been included in the Register of the National
Estate. The present Keefers
base, already without any possible vehicle access or
parking, is quite unsuitable for the role it plays,
and it should not be placed under more pressure.
Floating markers and other large rubbish from the
array is constantly being lodged among rocks below
the Beaumaris Cliff. A
former PPCC Inc. Vice-President has dived on the
seabed near and under the present Beaumaris Aquaculture Zone,
and he said he was appalled by the marine desert
under it resulting from a very high concentration of
dead shellfish shells, and rubbish produced by the
degrading components of the floating array, falling
onto the seabed and accumulating all over it, and
detritus produced by the intensive nature of
constant large scale mussel feeding and defaecation. 

Yours sincerely,

Geoffrey Goode
President,
Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc.