Mediaboss Marketing

Jan. 25, 2013, 12:31 p.m.

Authorities have not ruled out the possibility a devastating virus could slip through quarantine measures in New South Wales and obliterate the nations multi-million dollar oyster industry.

Tests this week confirmed Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome (POMS) had reached a major tributary of the Hawkesbury River, between Sydney and Newcastle.

It was also detected in the Georges River and Port Jackson in 2010 and 2011.

The latest outbreak has inflicted a devastating blow on fourth-generation oyster farmer Rob Moxham, destroying about 90 per cent of oysters across 50 hectares.

With no resistance to the virus, oysters that had been healthy on Monday were felled - in their millions - virtually overnight.

This morning, the NSW Department of Primary Industries confirmed the virus had spread to another part of the river.

The development has sent shock waves through the nations seafood industry, particularly other Pacific oyster growing areas in NSW, Tasmania and South Australia.

Tasmanias oyster industry which directly employs more than 300 people is largely based around Pacific oyster production. The oyster industry is the second largest aquaculture sector in South Australia.

Oysters Tasmania executive officer Dr Tom Lewis said the chances the virus would spread to that state were remote givenbio-securitymeasures and the islands isolation from the mainland. But the organisation was preparing an action plan should it happen, he said.

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