Councillor Corinne Lamont is urging the community to have their say about protecting Wamberal Beach from erosion in light of previously secret documents being made public.
Central Coast Council is currently asking for public reaction to its draft Coastal Management Plan (CMP) for all its beaches.
The draft CMP notes a commitment from Council to work with the State Government for a whole of embayment solution to the public waterfront land at Wamberal and says it will need to complement any seawall put forward by private beachfront owners but notes the approved solution may not be a vertical seawall.
“Wamberal Beach deserves coastal management that protects both the coastline and the democratic process,’’ Councillor Corinne Lamont said this week.
Lamont won a case against Council two weeks ago to have two draft cost-benefit analyses (CBA) about the beach from 2021 made public.
The draft CBAs showed five different options for protecting Wamberal Beach and the costings were different from the final document that was made public.
The final document was used as justification for Council choosing a vertical seawall option for the beach.
But Lamont said the newly released documents told a different story.
“The first CBA draft (June 2021) that was suppressed by Council until recently shows starkly different economic results compared to the final version of the CBA that was publicly released in February 2022,” Lamont said.
“Under the June 2021 draft, the vertical seawall option barely outperformed others.
“By the time of the final report, six months later, the Net Present Value (NPV) of the vertical seawall had jumped to $53.7M, and its Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) rose to 2.43, making it the highest-ranked option.’’
The NPV of the other options rose too but Lamont said there was no public explanation of what the increases were based on and why Option 3 was the highest ranked.
“It is my opinion that this shift strongly suggests that inputs were significantly revised to justify a predetermined outcome,” Lamont said.
“It’s time for transparency, accountability, and a serious public re-evaluation of the seawall project and I encourage the community to make submissions to the Coastal Management Plan (CMP), asking for no less.”
Lamont made it clear she was expressing her views, not the view of Council.
In the words of the 2022 document: “The CBA quantifies the expected costs and benefits for five identified protection alternatives (in addition to the base case) to consider economic trade-offs for options to manage future coastal hazards at Wamberal Beach”.
“The scope of the analysis for the CBA consists of approximately 1,500m of beach situated between the Terrigal and the Wamberal Lagoon entrances of Wamberal Beach.
“Based on the hazard line map, without protection, 72 houses are likely to be impacted by coastal storm erosion events over the next 30 years.”
Five management options in addition to the base case were analysed as part of the report:
There was a base case to maintain the status quo and then five options: Option 1 basalt rock revetment; Option 2 sandstone rock revetment; Option 3 vertical seawall; Option 4 vertical seawall with rock toe; Option 5 tiered vertical seawall with promenade.
All the seawall options achieved a positive NPV, meaning that benefits outweighed costs but the majority of the benefits went to the beachfront homeowners and some to the non beachfront homeowners.
Only Option 5 showed benefits for the entire community.
Lamont said a previous 2017 report from the same people who did the 2021 report was also worth a look.
The 2017 report concluded that any seawall was the worst option for Wamberal Beach.
Lamont said unlike the 2017 report, the newer 2021 report only compared seawall designs, not whether a seawall should be built in the first place.
“We should ask why another CBA was commissioned by Council and the former state government just three years after the (2017 report) disqualified seawall options,” Lamont said.
The draft CMP, currently on public exhibition for comment, proposes that property owners with properties at risk of coastal erosion continue to be responsible for the funding and implementation of any coastal protection works for their own properties.
An update on sand nourishment as another solution is given in the CMP.
“Council is aware of the current action in the NSW State Disaster Mitigation Plan to assess the feasibility of large-scale offshore sand reserves and other sources for beach nourishment including where it might be suitable and will continue to work with the NSW Government on the outcomes of this study,” the draft says.
“This study is due for completion by the end of June 2025 and Wamberal/Terrigal and The Entrance North beaches were included in the list of beaches that were given a more detailed assessment of feasibility of beach nourishment in the study.
“Council has included an action in the CMP to work with the NSW Government on the next stages of this project such as physical testing of potential sand source locations.”
The CMP is on public exhibition until August 25 and more details are available at: https://www.yourvoiceourcoast.com/our-coast-our-waterways
Merilyn Vale
Any work performed at Wamberal Beach must be 100% paid for by the home owners. Residents of the Central Coast should not be paying for the errors for building in a known high risk area.