Disease may kill Hawkesbury oyster farms FOURTH generation Hawkesbury River oyster farmer John Stubbs is selling up after losing his livelihood to a devastating shellfish disease. His neighbour has also been forced out and other oyster farmers on the river remain unsure if they can hang on as the NSW government signals it has no "bucket of money" to help them recover. Earlier this year Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome (POMS) virtually wiped out this year's Hawkesbury harvest, destroying about 10 million oysters valued at up to $6 million. The NSW opposition on Saturday called on the state government to help save the dozen or so remaining farmers from going out of business by providing emergency assistance including low interest loans. Mr Stubbs told AAP it was "a terrible feeling" leaving a longstanding family business, after coming through the 2004 outbreak of QX parasite that destroyed farmed Sydney Rock Oysters. For this disease to come along and flatten us again, it's been quite stressful. Mr Stubbs said farmers had limited options this time round, with natural disaster funding not covering them for POMS and only those with back-up jobs likely to hang on as disease-resistant oyster stocks were built up again. He said that after the QX outbreak Hawkesbury farmers switched to Pacific oysters and became industry leaders, so for the government to say, "You're on your own guys" was hard to take. NSW opposition water spokesman Walt Secord said farmers needed government assistance for restocking and to meet ongoing expenses. Fisheries NSW Aquaculture Manager Ian Lyall said Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson had made it clear to farmers the government "doesn't have a bucket of money to assist them." He said farmers had been offered licence fee waivers or payment rescheduling and levy exemptions for dumping waste, as well as subsidies to buy in new oyster spat. Ms Hodgkinson had also applied to Treasury for low-interest loans to support farmers and that decision was still pending, Mr Lyall said. The government had been pushing farmers to farm more than one species and use disease-resistant strains of oysters, he said. Unfortunately for the Hawkesbury there wasn't enough diversification. Mr Stubbs said that in 2011 farmers agreed to diversify to minimise risk, but not enough QX-resistant Sydney Rock Oyster spat was available from hatcheries.