I object to Central Coast Council’s Draft Open Coastal Management Program CMP) because it does not comply with the Coastal Management Act 2016 for several reasons.
The CPM fails to recognise the Terrigal and Wamberal lagoons and related residential floodplains as coastal vulnerability areas that are subjected to ocean inundation as well as catchment flooding if the Wamberal beach opening is significantly opened or restricted.
Its proposal for Wamberal Beach is a terminal protection (page 123) whose ‘end effects’ could directly cause ocean inundation to the adjacent lagoons, flooding the homes on the floodplain, and causing sewerage pollution to these residential areas.
Not only is there no recognition of these coastal issues but there are no actions or emergency planning in this regard.
The CMP prioritises vertical seawalls at Wamberal without DA approval, funding commitments or proper assessment of alternatives.
The CMP does not prioritise or consider options such as sand nourishment which would allow sand to be dredged and dispersed within the wave zone (not the beach itself) to build the beach back and allow the waves to break well away from the dunes.
This is a workable alternative that Angus Gordon (an experienced ocean engineer who knows Wamberal Beach very well) has put forward as a workable alternative.
Community feedback opposing hard protection measures has been disregarded (approx 3200 objections to Wamberal Seawall DA) and other options such as sand nourishment (have been) criticised by staff involved in drafting the CMP – the same staff who have worked closely with the proposed Wamberal Beach DA applicants to build a 1.3km seawall on Wamberal Beach, which in itself is a major conflict of interest.
The draft CMP is not legally fit for certification, as it does not include cost, legal and responsibility planning, particularly when considering the responsibility of council when hundreds of homes flood as a result of ocean inundation to the residential floodplains due to what was proposed as solutions in the CMP.
The CMP has been drafted without the necessary due diligence and flood studies to understand the potential impacts on the impacted vulnerable areas.
The beach and lagoons are one ecosystem and the CMP should not ignore this, which it appears to do, with impacted beach lagoons and floodplains not considered.
The lagoons may be a separate CMP which at this point has not been completed – the ocean CMP and the Lagoon CPM need to be considered holistically.
Email, Aug 4
Tania Crafford, Wamberal
