This is not what we need in Coos Bay, the local fisheries have been hit hard enough. Fishermen plead with the government to close the harbour to fishing for at least three years due to sick fish attributed to contamination from natural gas processing.

Lawyers working for professional fishers and crabbers told the Government in June that Gladstone Harbour should be shut to commercial fishing for three years to protect the reputation of their seafood brand and allow sediment from the LNG development to settle.

But the closure depended on compensation for fishermen, the letter to the Department of Environment and Resource Management’s Co-ordinator General – and leaked to The Sunday Mail – reveals.

Months after the report was handed to the Co-ordinator General, and commercial fishermen threatened to go public to reveal they had caught fish and crabs that were blind and had ulcers, the Government last month closed the port area to fishing temporarily.

The ban came after fisherman were made ill from handling fish they said were suffering from contamination created by dredging linked with building up to five LNG treatment plants in the harbour.

Two fishermen were hospitalised, as well as the pregnant wife of a deckhand and their two young children, after coming in to contact with the fish.