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Protect Wooli From Coastal Erosion

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Update on Wooli beach protection

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You may recall from our January 2021 update that Wooli beach had come through the summer storms showing some wear and tear but no damage to the main dune.

Mother Nature’s demands left a 1m-2m high scar along most of the new foredune and badly damaged many of the seaward sand traps.

 

But thankfully the 2019 beach scrape and revegetation project provided enough protection to meet that demand and still retain a foredune 10m-15m wide with healthy vegetation along the most at-risk section of dunes.

However, as mentioned in January, even partial protection by the Solitary Islands reefs plus the success of the 2019 project are unlikely to be sufficient to withstand increasing climate change threats from more severe storms, rising sea levels and closer tropical cyclones.

A major part of the plan to address this threat and build towards a dune able to withstand a 1-in-50-years storm is to repeat the 2019 project in 2021 with another round of beach scraping and revegetation to repair and further strengthen the dune. Early in 2020 CCPA started working with council and NSW state government on this second-scrape project. The initial timetable was to complete the project during the March-June window of 2021 as this is the period when historically the beach is in optimum condition, wide and flat with plenty of sand available.

Unfortunately, based on several recent reviews of the beach plus analysis of weather and wave forecasts, the conclusion has been reached that the conditions in March-June wont be suitable. The target has now been moved to August-November 2021, subject to the beach recovering. Meanwhile, work is continuing to fine-tune and finalise government funding and licences.

On a brighter note, huge congratulations to the Wooli Art Show committee for staging the largest and most successful show yet over the recent Easter weekend. As CCPA President Bruce Bird wrote to the  Committee “I must congratulate you all on the absolutely fantastic effort put in by all, bringing the community together, the Artists and also bringing together the Sponsors, to provide the financial  impetus  for the stunning success the Art Show has been –  it is testament to what can be achieved – on behalf of CCPA I say thank you.)

In closing, CCPA is pleased to welcome members who have joined us recently. New faces, ideas and enthusiasm are always welcome so feel free to forward this update to any recent arrivals to Wooli who you think could be interested to know more about its challenges and our campaign to protect it.

Next Steps to Protect Wooli

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Wooli’s first beach scraping project is complete and so far looks like a resounding success. Not only was it finished within budget and on time, but it also added 40% more sand to the dunes than was expected. The low tide area of the beach recovered very quickly and no environmental or heritage damage was done. In addition, new sand-traps were installed and the first stage of replanting completed (see photo). The most at-risk part of the village, the southernmost 800 metres, is now well protected from the next 1-in-20-years storm.

 

But the question remains, “what about even bigger storms”?

Our most recent expert advice, the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) 2018, recommends the at-risk dunes be nourished with 60,000 cubic metres of sand to provide the best protection from a 1-in-50-years storm. The CZMP also recommends this sand be sourced from the Wilsons Headland end of the beach supplemented by further local beach scraping. Council is continuing to progress the CZMP through various state government departments, Native Title and its own budget process. However, we should expect that to secure the necessary funding ($2m) and licences to implement the Wilsons Headland Nourishment project will take years, not months, to achieve.

 

In the meantime, an interim solution could well be a second Beach Scraping Project.

This would add enough sand for the dune to withstand a 1-in-30-years storm and would get us 50% of the way to the target of 60,000 cubic metres described above.

Repeated scraping has several major advantages: it has a history of success (New Brighton has done 3 now), is relatively inexpensive compared to Nourishment, involves no major licensing issues and is rapidly achievable. It could be completed by mid-2020 if we start preparing now.

We suggest this approach:

1.  CCPA to write to Council proposing a second beach scraping project to be completed in 2020 and funded as per the first project, ie. $50,000 from the State government and $25,000 each from CCPA and Council.

2. CCPA to commence raising $25,000 as soon possible, subject to positive feedback from Council and State.

Tide Turns in Wooli’s Favour

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First, the Bad News.

Almost eight months ago we published Heads in the Sand. This story highlighted DuneCare’s need for help to quickly bolster the fore dune which, after protecting Wooli many times, was badly damaged by major storms in quick succession. Unfortunately, Clarence Valley Council (CVC) refused our request to use beach scraping even though this is a proven, inexpensive and widely used solution to this problem.

However, Council’s refusal was quickly shown to be a major error when shortly afterwards the (then) Environment Minister, Rob Stokes, strongly supported scraping in his speech to the NSW Coastal Conference. He followed this up by saying he would shortly write to the Council recommending and offering funding for beach scraping at Wooli.

So what’s the bad news in that you ask? Well, just before he wrote to CVC he was caught up in the recent reshuffle of the NSW Government and lost the Environment Portfolio. The major impacts on Wooli were:

  1. Council’s continued refusal to help rebuild our fore dune leaving Wooli exposed to upcoming Winter’s storms and
  2. a further six month delay in Ministerial approval of Wooli’s coastal management plan (CZMP) which aims to provide longer term protection of the beach.

 

Fortunately, the tide then started turning (pun intended) in Wooli’s favour when the new Environment Minister, Gabrielle Upton, was appointed.

CCPA quickly enlisted the help of Clarence MP, Chris Gulaptis, in arranging a meeting with her to go over these issues. Like Chris, our new CVC Mayor, Jim Simmons, also showed his support for Wooli by agreeing to a senior council manager, Des Schroder, joining us in attending the meeting thereby presenting a combined community and council view to Minister Upton.

So the Good News is, following the June 1st meeting, the Minister has taken two important steps:

  1. She has written to CVC supporting beach scraping at Wooli without the need for either an approved CZMP or further environmental studies and with funding being immediately available and
  2. Confirmed she would prioritise making a decision on whether or not to approve our CZMP. The Coastal Panel had earlier recommended against approving it until Council does several more studies (resulting in a major delay) while we and the council recommended approving it now, with any critical studies to be included in its first stage. We suspect the Minister’s decision may still be weeks away, hopefully not months.

After eight months of delays these steps make it feel like the force is with us again and Wooli’s future is being dug out of  government limbo. Let’s leave our fingers crossed because the fore dune is still damaged, the storm season is still coming and the CZMP is not yet approved.

Heads in the Sand?

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You might remember our article early this year thanking DuneCare for creating a healthy fore dune. The article also raised the concern that “..we are worried that the fore dunes  that have been built up might be taken by a big storm and then it takes us 6 months to organise a beach scraping project (to repair it) – and there could be another storm in that time which could seriously damage the main dune.”

Well those two storms in June brought this fear very much to the fore as the fore dune lost about half its sand and the foot of the main dune was exposed in several places. As that article foreshadowed  “..Based on very experienced independent advice, the CCPA steering committee has begun the next step of working with the Council to have a beach scraping plan pre-approved and pre-funded so as to be ready when it’s needed to quickly repair the fore dune.”

 

CCPA’s success in proactively working with Council to develop the CZMP (which includes scraping) provided an encouraging basis for this discussion.
But on the other hand, CCPA has been unsuccessfully promoting beach scraping (also known as Nature Assisted Beach Enhancement ) as a  practical measure to mitigate risks at Wooli for a number of years.

The four barriers to NABE raised during these promotions are listed below, each followed by the independent –expert advice that CCPA has received.

  • Using NABE would weaken the CZMP case with State Depts. for using beach nourishment

          NABE is a short term management technique to overcome erosion which can occur when multiple storms occur in a relatively short period. It is not in competition with beach nourishment     and in fact is often used in conjunction with beach nourishment, as well as on its own.

  • There is insufficient evidence/studies proving the value of NABE

         This is incorrect. There are many papers available demonstrating the value of beach scraping, some of which are summarised in the 2016 NSW Conference papers. The Engineers Australia   2013 Conference also had an extended seminar on the topic with a very large list of references.

  • Wooli beach is a net-loser of sand so the scraped sand would not be replaced

         This is again incorrect. Whether a beach is or is not a net loser of sand it is where that sand is stored on the beach that is critical from the point of view of limiting main dune erosion. If some  of the sand is stored in beach-scraped dunes then they form a buffer which can absorb some or all of the erosion before the main dune is exposed to direct attack. New Brighton is a classic  example of this.

  • There are no funds available, even for a Pilot study, even if CCPA largely funded it

          Even if CCPA pays there are no funds ? The logic eludes me. Besides, State grant funds are made available for community and council projects.

 

Unfortunately, our recent discussion with Council was only successful in identifying a fifth barrier, which is

  • that NABE is included in the CZMP and so can’t be used until the CZMP is approved by the Minister. Until then, NABE was considered to be outside the official CZMP process.

 Many councils have been successfully using NABE for many decades without the need for a certified CZMP and so councils shouldn’t use the absence of a certified CZMP as an excuse for not undertaking NABE.

 

 

In the absence of community-led NABE , the official approach is firstly to encourage DuneCare to rebuild the fore dune (which of course they are) and secondly to wait until the CZMP process is complete. Optimistically this would mean NABE could not proceed until at least 2018 which is the earliest time in which the CZMP foresees the beach needing sand renourishment. The underpinning assumptions here are that the main dune survives this summer’s cyclone season (forecast to be worse than usual) as well as the 2017 winter storms.

The possible ray of sunshine is a rumour that the Minister may include his support for NABE in his presentation at November’s NSW Coastal Conference. Armed with that, CCPA will be approaching not only Council Officers but also our elected Councillors urging them to get behind the urgent repair work needed on Wooli’s dunes.

 

 

 

Is the peak in sight?

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bureaucracy-editedIt’s not obvious at first, but if you look more closely, the peak of the bureaucratic mountain to be climbed to get Wooli’s Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) approved definitely looks closer.climb-map

In case fatigue has dimmed you memory of our climb over the last year or so, here’s a refresher of the main stages so far. The big news is that the CZMP has finally been sent from Council to the Minister for approval.

peak-editedWhile that progress is very welcome, the expert advice we’ve had warns the route ahead will be tricky, meaning we are unlikely to reach the summit of a certified CZMP until  first-quarter 2017.