Tactics such as marking the passage from Pelican Point to the St Helens Wharf, dredging and a retaining wall have all been previously used in an attempt to make the channel more stable and reliable.

The latest Marine and Safety Tasmania proposal would cost about $2.3 million and include building a sheet piling seawall along the beach at Pelican Point and a diversion wall in the barway.

The second stage would include extending the existing rock wall in the barway to 160 metres.

St Helens Barway Committee chairman John McGiveron said the project is low-cost and would provide long-term stability, however, can only go ahead with government support.

He said MAST engineers and most fishermen were confident the plan would work.

In August 2013, a cost-benefit analysis report suggested a $22 million project that involved a new rock retaining wall at Pelican Point, extending the barway breakwater and dredging channels that link Georges Bay to the Tasman Sea.

"At the moment Pelican Point has about a metre at low water and two-plus metres at high tide," McGiveron said.

"It is not life threatening there but everyone is getting stuck.

"When they did the flow test they found that about 10 per cent of the water goes down the channel on the in tide and about 90 per cent flows out across flats and over the other side, which means there is not scouring.

"The obvious answer to that was to mostly divert the water to go down the one side.

"They have come up with a proposal to to extend the wall along the beach at Pelican Point and also build a diversion wall in the bay to divert a fair percentage of water down Pelican Point.

"You would extend the wall along the edge of the shore and put an angled diversion wall in the bay to catch the water.

"That would mean water flow and once you get that bit of a channel it will probably stay there all within reason."

Mr McGiveron said the removal of more than 200,000 cubic metres of sand in 2009 and 2011 worked well - giving commercial and recreational boaters some reliability.

"They took off 240,000 cubic metres with the idea that 15,000 metres of sand a year would come back on the beach, which we had taken off the barway," he said.

"In the first year 100,000 cubic metres came back on, that's how much sand was accumulating out on the barway.

"It has progressively filled up and for about four years the barway actually stayed stable and where it needs to be with about three or four metres at low water.

"Subsequently since then in the last 12 months or so the sand has filled up the hole that was removed and now we have got a big accumulation of sand back on the barway."

He said using plastic sheet piling, which has be used in marine development worldwide, is a cheaper and more accessible alternative to rock.

With MAST, local and state government finance, Mr McGiveron said stage one could start late this year, with the 160 metre extension of the existing retaining wall to come later if required.

"It (wall extension) would have the same effect as taking the sand off the beach, it leaves a hole behind the wall for the sand to build up in." he said.

MAST is working on an environmental management plan, which it hopes to complete by April.

The state Liberal government has committed $50,000 towards the the St Helens marine infrastructure project.

Infrastructure Minister Rene Hidding said there was no room within the budget for an expensive project, but he remained open for ideas.

He said he had been briefed by MAST on the proposed $22 million two-stage break wall project to prevent sand shoaling.

Break O'Day Mayor Mick Tucker, a fisherman himself, said St Helens's economy relied on the sea and asked that the state government do everything it can to make the barway stable to generate greater certainty.

"We need to stabilise the barway, deepen the barway, stabilise Pelican Point and there is a model that I'm extremely confident with that I think will work," he said.

"Our community relies on the sea, access to the port and we have got a $2.5 million port that people can't get to. The government built this brand new wharf facility and we believe that in 12 to 18 months there is going to be another orange roughy fishery.

"We have the opportunity to create provisions, downstream processing, marine infrastructure facilities and we are going to lose out on that unless the government puts their hand up and make the barway better."

The 2013 report found that without major infrastructure investment, St Helens's deep-sea fishing and aquaculture production, exports and employment would be at serious risk of closure within three years, which would cost the region $305 million over two decades.