PREMIER David Bartlett yesterday refused to buy into a new community push for funds to dredge a silt-choked Tamar estuary.
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Mr Bartlett instead pushed the onus back on to the Launceston City Council to become involved again in the dredging program.
The public dredging program stopped when council funds for it ran out in June.
Federal Bass Liberal candidate Steve Titmus said yesterday that his party would give an unconditional $2.5 million for dredging if elected to govern.
Previously the pledge was conditional on the money being matched by the state government, which had promised the money during its election campaign earlier this year.
But only $400,000 was subsequently earmarked in this year's budget and Infrastructure Minister Bryan Green has said that should be used for another study.
Members of a three-man special government committee that looked at the silt problem last year, yesterday accused the federal government of remaining silent on the funding issue and the state government of being "neglectful".
Launceston MLC Don Wing said that federal Labor should commit to its fair share of the cost of alleviating the environmental silt disaster before Saturday's election.
His committee colleagues Kerry Finch and Ivan Dean said that the only way to deal with the build-up of silt in the Tamar was to remove it.
"This will be costly and the bulk of the funding must come from both the state and federal governments," Mr Finch said.
But Mr Bartlett said the problem required a solution that was both economically and environmentally sustainable in the long term so that the residents and businesses of Launceston could rely on a cleaner and more accessible river.
"I was disappointed that the Launceston City Council chose not to fund their share of future dredging and that's something that I will raise with the council at our joint cabinet-council meeting on Monday," Mr Bartlett said.
Hydro Tasmania manager business sustainability Andrew Scanlon said that some people blamed the Trevallyn dam for silt levels in the Tamar.
"They are incorrect - the dam has two second order effects on silt in the Tamar," he said.
"The first is the slowing down of silt return on the incoming tide and the second involves changes to high flows down the Cataract Gorge.
"The more water that flows through Trevallyn power station, the bigger effect on reducing tidal return of silt."
