THE state government will be pushed today to deliver on its promised $6.4 million funding for dredging in the Tamar River.
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Lyons Liberal MHA Rene Hidding said yesterday that he would take his demand to Local Government Minister Bryan Green to confirm the money in Parliament today.
Mr Hidding said that until he received that confirmation, he would not consider a new proposal to build a barrage across the Tamar River at Long Reach.
Retired Launceston engineer and market strategist Robin Frith last week released a 32-page report proposing a barrage with locks for leisure craft and commercial vessels.
He says it could be built for about $120 million.
The barrage would create a 45 square kilometre freshwater lake that Mr Frith said would provide huge economic benefit to the region and take care of the Tamar silt problem.
Mr Hidding said that the Liberals were aware of Mr Frith's proposal and others that were similar.
"We think that they all have merit, but in the current climate when we can't chisel free even one dollar of the promised state government money for dredging, we must focus on that," Mr Hidding said.
Mr Green said that the government was looking at priorities on a regional basis.
He said that if the Launceston City Council wanted to put forward Mr Frith's proposal as its highest priority for the Tamar, it could do so.
"Currently, we are focusing on the Launceston flood levee and therefore the protection of a large proportion of the city including many homes from being inundated in the event of a major flood," Mr Green said.
Launceston Flood Authority chairman Martin Renilson said that Mr Frith's proposal was an interesting one.
But he said that the authority would need to have modelling carried out to test the suggestion that the proposed barrage would help control floodwaters.
NRM North chief executive James McKee said that Mr Frith's proposal raised a number of ecological and environmental questions that he would want tested during a feasibility study.
He suggested that the Tamar sponge gardens, many of which were located near the possible site of the barrage, could be threatened by it.
Mr Frith had suggested that the freshwater lake provided opportunities for freshwater aquaculture, but Mr McKee said it would threaten existing saltwater aquaculture.
