Club president Dave Clark wrote to Eurobodalla Shire Council early in January, after Level 3 water restrictions were put in place, proposing the club and council together put in a funding submission to the NSW Department of Primary Industries for a Recreational fishing fee trust grant to cover costs of installing a saltwater pump and tap.

A letter from council to Mr Clark, dated January 19, stated the proposal for the installation of pumps at the fish cleaning tables is currently being assessed and consideration needs to be had of the whole of life costs, which include budget and ongoing maintenance and replacement, with this proposal to establish if council will support the use of saltwater at the fish cleaning tables.

Council said it was regrettable it could not support the proposal at this time, but hope that the club could appreciate the research that needed to be carried out to ensure that the long term viability has been assessed prior to committing the use of saltwater pump's at the shire's boat ramps.

Mr Clark said the proposal we were looking at was for Apex Park in Narooma to be set up as a test case, and reading the application form, this could be funded by them as with the costs of replacement pumps and other items.

"As far as we can see the only cost to council would be the labour costs to install, but this could be offset with help from fishing club members as well with any maintenance of it," he said.

"I myself feel that if we can one pump in operation in the shire it could be an on-going grant from Recfish every six to 12 months so the rest of the shire can have a fish cleaning table in each town with a salt water pump in use."

Club weigh master Dennis Maggs said one of the positive outcomes from installing a saltwater pump and taps would be the conservation of fresh water which was particularly important to do in the current drought climate with level four water restrictions in place.

He said washing saltwater fish in saltwater when cleaning actually preserved the fish's flavour.

Mr Clark said the biggest issue would be how to set up the saltwater pump system so that vandals would not be able to damage the system.

An article in the Bay Post/Moruya Examiner last week quoted Hanging Rock fisherman Con Tsoulias saying local fisherman preferred to clean their fish with saltwater.

Mr Tsoulias said having the taps turned up because of the drought had lead to unhygienic conditions at the cleaning tables because of the contamination by bird droppings.