00:00Ian Crisp spent an entire week preparing for the record-breaking mid-north coast floods.
00:09So we thought we were pretty, pretty well prepared, but we might as well not have bothered.
00:14We might as well have just gone to the pub and just let it go.
00:17At the height of the disaster, they were using their punt to rescue stranded residents,
00:22while floodwaters tangled their leases, leaving the future of their younger oysters in doubt.
00:28That stock will be, you know, if it's not dead, it'll be stunted or knocked around and take a long time to recover if it does.
00:37The Manning River rose more than three and a half metres above average here at the Crisp's Place,
00:43the floodwaters washing away thousands of oyster baskets and damaging vital infrastructure and machinery.
00:49But there's a possible silver lining.
00:52The Manning is the only river in the southern hemisphere with two openings to the sea,
00:57and while one of them is blocked more often than not, the newly overflowing river has just helped open it up.
01:04It makes a massive difference when you have both entrances open to get rid of that water.
01:09Mother Nature has done the job for us.
01:12The salinity will come back bigger and better and the oysters will absolutely power on.
01:17So that is a dead set positive.
01:20And a much needed one.
01:22Matt and Peter Carroll had their upcoming Christmas harvest washed away.
01:26We've probably lost half a million Sydney Rock oysters, about 2023 catch.
01:31They'd like to see both entrances kept open permanently.
01:35Or some sort of system that will help the estuary survive.
01:39The local council does have a management plan and carved a flood notch before this event.
01:45But farmers are calling for greater state government involvement.
01:48Maintenance dredging channels to it.
01:50Make sure that we've got a much better chance in a flood of getting that water away and off the flood plain.
01:58For now, the water is flowing.
02:00We're expecting the next decade to be pretty productive here.
02:07You've just got to hope that the rest of the industry has the confidence and the money to continue to reinvest and get cracking.
02:14A pearl of hope amid the devastation.
02:18A pearl of hope amid the devastation.
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