Save our sand

Washed away: this walkway on Anderson Inlet at Inverloch has suffered from major erosion.

By Brad Lester

COUNCILS are racing against time to save South Gippsland’s beaches and dunes from wild weather conditions.
Winter storms have eroded dunes, cutting access to beaches and leaving beachcombers threatened by unstable sand cliffs.
Beaches at Inverloch, Kilcunda and Cowes are among those in need of attention.
It is not known whether the wild weather experienced along the coast recently is the result of freak storms or is part of a longer term change in climate.
Bass Coast Shire Council will sandbag an Inverloch beach – the first time the technique has been used in the shire – after receiving a State Government grant.
Beaches are vital to the lifestyle and culture of the Bass Coast, said council’s environment manager Paul Smith.
“All of the studies we have done show people visit here or move here because of the beaches and so we need to maintain access to the coast,” he said.
Mr Smith is investigating ways of reinstating access to the Kilcunda surf beach after waves battered the coastline, creating a four metre drop and leaving stairs hanging in the air.
“We are just looking at whether we can get a set of stairs there. When we put stairs down, we expect to only get one or two seasons out of them,” he said.
The trial will help to protect the shire’s number one tourism asset – access to beaches.
Sandbags will be stacked along the base of dunes in Anderson Inlet after winds of nearly 70km/h eroded massive amounts of sand and passers-by were threatened by unstable cliffs, in August.
Mr Smith said council received the grant from the Department of Sustainability and Environment to undertake the trial.
“This technique has been trialled before on the Gold Coast and at Byron Bay, with success,” he said.
“This is a priority because the erosion is starting to get close to the road and we also have pedestrian access.
“But if the primary dune was heading towards Eagles Nest, we would tend to let it go because it’s only natural for it to be eroded away and come back again.”
Bluestone has been laid along the beach in the past but was unsuccessful in reducing erosion.
“Bluestone was put there but not on geotech fabric so over time the rocks worked their way into the sand. The rocks moved too,” Mr Smith said.
“But sandbags lock together and when sand drifts away, the sandbags flop into the hole.”
The dunes in question span from the end of Abbott Street eastwards.
The trial is expected to start after summer, in time for the peak winter storm season.
Mr Smith is also investigating the effectiveness of existing timber groynes at Cowes in controlling sand movement.
Residents of Waratah Bay have told The Star that walkways to that beach have been eroded, resulting in a half-metre leap onto the sand, the anchoring poles left dangling in the air.
South Gippsland Shire biodiversity officer Chris Rankin, said the Waratah Bay foreshore was the only part of the coast for which the shire was responsible.
He said sand socks, or giant sandbags had been set around steps at Waratah Bay. They have been there for a couple of years and had been effective.

Short URL: http://www.thestar.com.au/?p=93

Posted by Chris Brown on Oct 13 2009. Filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry