A group of Bay of Islands oyster farmers have been told they may never again be able to harvest the shellfish.
Their Waikare Inlet farms were closed after they were polluted with human waste in 2001.
Last month the farmers met local government officials and staff of theMinistry of Fisheries and the Food Safety Authority to discuss reopening their farms.
Since 2001, the authority has reclassified most of the Waikare Inlet as "restricted", which means farmers cannot sell shellfish that has been harvested from the affected water.
Regional seafood specialist Dorothy-Jean McCoubrey said that at the meeting the farmers were told it was unlikely that situation would change.
"The only option that we have approved so far is to relay them to clean water, so that the oysters can purge any contamination that might be in them.
"They need to be in clean water for 60 days before harvest," Ms McCoubrey said.
The nature of human activity around the inlet had changed in recent years, meaning there was always potential for contamination.
Ms McCoubrey said several farmers at the meeting said they still wanted to find a way to continue farming, which could mean using the relay option.
They face an expensive clean-up to get their farms back to operational standards.
Years of disuse have led to a build-up of silt, overloaded oyster frames and general disrepair.
In October, nine of the farmers lost a $12 million damages suit against the Far North District Council in which they had alleged the Kawakawa sewage treatment plant, which it ran, was responsible for the 2001 sewage spill.
The council successfully argued in court that the farmers could not prove the Kawakawa plant was the source of the sewage.
