Primary Industries Minister Bryan Green said this week that representatives from his ministerial office, as well as Primary Industries Department officers, met flood authority personnel on Tuesday.

"This was to understand more fully what is (the authority's) plan for expending the state government's $1 million for a short-term dredging exercise," Mr Green said.

Mr Green said at the end of last week that he would do everything legally that he could to fast-track a new silt sampling and analysis program and permit applications that needed to happen before dredging could begin.

He said that both he and Premier David Bartlett were "annoyed" that the $1 million announced by Mr Bartlett last August for an immediate start on dredging the worst of the silt in the upper Tamar estuary had still not been spent.

Instead, flood authority chairman Martin Renilson said that it could be at least June before the authority had completed the silt sampling and analysis required for new five-year dredging permits that had been allowed to lapse.

Professor Renilson said that state government officers had worked closely with flood authority staff this week to try to speed up permit applications.

Mr Green said that this week's talks had identified areas where time frames could be condensed.

"I will give an undertaking that the department will continue to work closely with the flood authority on that," Mr Green said.

"I will also be writing to the flood authority and the Launceston City Council this week to again express the government's expectations that plans for the short-term, one-off dredging exercise be finalised and implemented as a matter of priority so that dredging can commence as the earliest opportunity."

Meanwhile, Professor Renilson said that the authority had been unable to find any evidence of previous river silt sampling outlined by river advocate Jim Collier

Mr Collier said that he had helped University of Wollongong Associate Professor Brian Jones take river core samples for analysis "just a few years ago", so more were not needed.

Professor Renilson said that flood authority staff had done a thorough search and could find no evidence of the samples or reports written about them.