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GAINAustralian News    27/04/2005 10:16:36

The old tourism slogan

"throw another prawn on the barbie" is taking on a whole new perspective in the Riverina area of New South Wales as an environmental problem is turned to advantage.

The Inland Saline Aquaculture Centre between Moulamien and Wakool is about to harvest its first batch of saltwater prawns that have been grown over the past five months in saline groundwater.

The effort is a joint project between Australia's largest private irrigation company, Murray Irrigation and New South Wales Fisheries. NSW Fisheries' Grant Webster claims the project will provide much needed employment opportunities in the outback region.

"The Murray Darling is a massive area and we've got a lot of problems with salinity, so the scope for Inland Saline Aquaculture is enormous. Once we turn out some good results we'd be looking for quite a lot of investment. And the benefits to rural communities we hope could be quite large in the not too distant future. " Mr Webster was reported as saying.

The project has trialled a number of diverse species including rainbow trout, silver perch, mulaway, snapper and tiger prawns in the salty groundwater. The rainbow trout has been the most successful with a commercial trial last year seeing the product sold locally through butcher shops. Over the past four months a new species of prawns has been evaluated, and they should soon be big enough to send to market.

Mr Webster says he's excited to be involved in the ground breaking research.

"Just the satisfaction of doing something new, none of this has been tried in Australia and very limited overseas so to be at the forefront is very exciting. "