Artificial reef to be considered in CMP Stage 3

The sunken HMAS Adelaide Photo credit: Sue Dengate

Options to place artificial reefs at Wamberal and North Entrance will be considered next year as Central Coast Council works on a Coastal Management Program (CMP).

Stage three of the CMP will look at all options for beach nourishment including reefs that would attract surfers to the area.

The move comes after Councillors Jilly Pilon and Bruce McLachlan modified earlier calls for immediate research into reefs as a possible solution for coastal erosion.

The pair had put a notice of motion to the Council meeting of August 10 to pro-actively research beach nourishment measures such as the successful works carried out by various Queensland Councils, including Noosa, Maroochydore and Palm Beach.

But Council staff explained that to attract grant funding, any options needed to be researched as part of the CMP, which must be finalised by 2021, as directed by State legislation.

The two councillors then rewrote their motion to ask that the CEO check the performance of artificial reefs by talking to Gold Coast Council and other stakeholders, and for Council staff to include reef and sand nourishment options during stage three of the CMP.

Stage three will see staff and stakeholders identify and evaluate the actions required to address coastal management issues in an integrated and strategic manner.

The new motion was adopted with only Cr Louise Greenaway abstaining from voting.

Cr Greenaway said she was concerned that any recommendation or endorsement of something that worked somewhere else may give rise to unrealistic expectations that it might work here.

Cr Pilon said she understood, agreeing that the same ideas might not suit the Central Coast’s coastline, but it was worth approaching the engineers and asking the questions.

“It would need to be considered by experts,” she said.

The public forum before the meeting saw Justin Hickey and Keiran O’Doherty address the council.

Hickey, a local board rider and patrolling member of Wamberal Surf Club, said the beach between Terrigal and Wamberal was an asset that needed protecting and he cited past studies that believed sea walls would not stop sand loss.

He said sea walls were banned in America because they moved the problem to the ends and caused erosion.

He then cited the example of Stockton Beach, which got an emergency sea wall in 1989 and where Nippers was regularly cancelled due to sand loss.

He said Byron Council does not fund projects that benefit a few homeowners at the expense of the general public.

O’Doherty said he was speaking on behalf of Wamberal board riders which had operated for more than 30 years and whose members formed a big part of the surf club members.

He talked about the Wamberal sea wall cost benefit analysis report from 2017 which discussed the impacts of a sea wall and said Council should adopt planned retreat which was the expert’s advice from that report.

Later in the meeting, Cr Troy Marquart asked Director Scott Cox to confirm that the rectification works for Wamberal would not be planned retreat.

Cox would only comment that Council had engaged a consultant to do a design for a long-term solution for Wamberal in accordance with a Council resolution and that it was currently actioning.

Merilyn Vale