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Protect Wooli From Coastal Erosion

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What does Court ruling on Byron case mean for Wooli?

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Gavel

If the recent legal fireworks at Byron Bay haven’t crossed your radar yet, here’s the report from the ABC.

The Australian newspaper also covered the story (thanks to David Hall for alerting us).

Highlights from the Supreme Court’s ruling on two long running cases were not only the awarding of several million dollars to Belongil property owners for damage caused by walls erected at Main Beach by Byron Council but also an order stopping Council proceeding with plans to remove walls protecting Belongil.

Does this mean CCPA should also be taking its case to court for better protection of Wooli beach? The broad conclusions the CCPA steering committee reached after expert advice are:

  • The court decisions are fairly specific to Byron as they appear to be heavily dependent on the actions that Council took at their Johnson Street site
  • It’s therefore unlikely to negate Planned Retreat policies at other councils
  • It’s also unlikely to make construction of rock walls any easier as the ruling says only that existing walls will be retained. Any proposed new walls would need to go through the Development Application process with council
  • Our expert advice about the implications for Wooli’s breakwaters were that “they were constructed by Public Works, (with) no input from Council”. So any legal case proposing our breakwaters were complicit in Wooli’s erosion (like the Johnson St walls were at Belongil) would have to target the State Government not Council.

 

Staying Ahead of the Joneses

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No fore dune at Jones Beach

As reported in our recent story, Wooli beach dodged a bullet; its fore dune prevented damage to the main dune from June’s (east coast low) storm.

Storm surges into bush land

However, Jones Beach next to the southern breakwater does not have the benefit of a fore dune. These pictures from Roger Welch show how the storm surge penetrated deeply into the bush behind the beach.

 

 

Finding ways to prevent similar incursions on Wooli Beach is clearly a priority for the Protect Wooli campaign so our beach doesn’t have a repeat of the 1995 experience.

1995 near the school (thanks Leone for the pic)

 

Here are a couple of ways of doing this:

  • firstly, each of us can be part of the DuneCare effort to replace, recover and restore the sand traps hit by the storm so that the wind-blown sand rebuilds the fore dune asap. Contact Sharon on 0448602898 if you can help with this. Thanks to Elaine Pearce and friends from Old Bar Beach community who recently donated several rolls of shade cloth to us
  • secondly, the CCPA steering committee will continue to lobby the Council to use a beach scrape to help nature and DuneCare quickly repair the most damaged areas before the next storm arrives. So far Council has focused on the bureaucratic difficulties of doing this while denying the benefits. We may need your support to raise funds for recognised experts to help CCPA progress this initiative.

Thanks, it’s working really well, but what if …

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Little dune viewed from big duneThanks to the DuneCare members and volunteers who worked steadily over the summer holidays on sand-trapping and replanting both the main dune and the fore dune. In some places the fore dune is even beginning to spawn another little dune nearer the water. DuneCare’s ongoing success is a credit to Craig Drabsch as he hands over the Coordinator responsibility to Sharon Nelson after three years. Thanks Craig and Sharon.

We reported earlier in the Little Hero article that the fore dune has already protected the main dune from substantial storms. However, as Kristin Stubbins noted recently “..we are worried that the fore-dunes beach scrapingthat have been built up might be taken by a big storm and then it takes us 6 months to organise a beach scrape (to repair it) – and there could be another storm in that time” which could seriously damage the main dune.

So it was timely to hear from Angus Gordon, Chair of the NSW Coastal Committee, that “I would always recommend it (beach scraping, also known as Nature Assisted Beach Enhancement) during the recovery phase after a severe erosion event. … I think I would put beach scraping on the “to do” list if you see the fore dunes being eroded”. For more detail on Angus’ views here is his recent paper, some of the highlights of which are :

  • Beach scraping provides potential to limit the erosion impacts of subsequent storms.  Reforming a fore dune sand buffer prior to secondary storms can reduce, but not overcome, the long-term rate of shoreline recession.
  • Focus on dune re-formation is vital. The sooner a sediment buffer is re-established at the back of the beach, the better it provides protection against following storm events. The formation of an incipient fore dune assists with deflection of onshore winds at the rear of the beach, allowing gravity to assist in releasing sand for depositing on the emerging dune.Also, the sooner the incipient dunes are formed the sooner re-planting and re-colonisation by remnant vegetation can occur, thus “kick-starting” the natural process that will eventually lead to the re-establishment of an effective, vegetated dune system.
  • NABE is basically a mechanical intervention to speed up the natural processes of beach and fore dune recovery after a storm event. It is a useful tool to achieve rapid reestablishment of a fore dune and beach berm. It can be used not only to create a buffer against further back beach erosion during following storms, but also to re-establish a dune crest level that will prevent a wash through from wave over-topping. While it is not a panacea for overcoming long-term coastal recession it can reduce the recession rate by mitigating the compounding impacts of multiple storm erosion events.

bright ideaBased on that very experienced 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 its needed to quickly repair the fore dune.

Cautionary note: meaningful progress of that plan will be tied to getting our new CZMP approved by the Minister along with the funding application that went along with it.

 

One Step Back, Two Steps Forward

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Watching for progress on Wooli’s Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) canone step, two steps be frustrating. Just to refresh your memory, here are the main steps so far:

That’s when the ‘one step back’ happened. The  CZMP proposed to get half the sand needed to nourish the village dunes from the national park behind Wilsons Headland. NSW National Parks department rejected that idea meaning the CZMP would not be approved.

Now for the two steps forward.

Firstly, Council are to be congratulated  for promptly approving an adjustment to the plan which retains beach nourishment to protect the dunes but uses a different approach to get the needed sand. The northern end of Wooli beach will continue to provide about half the sand originally planned for, but will do so every 2.5 years rather than every 5 years (depending on availability and need).

Secondly, Council added to the revised plan a proposal from CCPA to investigate beach scraping as a way to supplement the sand supply from north Wooli. Thanks to members Brian Saye (surveyor) and Bob Stack (engineer) for their Submissions which formed the basis for our proposal.

Finally, a couple of cautions about the Plan’s likely successsuccess_what_people_think_it_looks_like. Agreement will be needed from the Departments of Land and Marine Parks to take sand from north Wooli before this revised CZMP is likely to be approved by the Minister. Also state government approval of Council’s funding application is needed in order to get the plan started. Guarded optimism would be a fair summary.

6 out of 10 ain’t bad, but..

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We wanted to make sure you didn’t miss last week’s article in the Daily Examiner about the new Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) for Wooli

It begins “Clarence Valley Council’s back-flip on its original plan to deal with rising sea levels at Wooli has won a 6 out of 10 score from residents”.

As Meatloaf sang (well almost), 6 out of 10 ain’t bad. It’s a big improvement on the zero the community gave the 2010 Plan.

Here’s the complete DEX article.

The Wooli community showed how seriously it takes this CZMP, and how closely it will be watching its progress. A deluge of  72 submissions containing about 300 pages was received by Council.This submission illustrates many of the points raised by the community.

A summary of our submissions will accompany the CZMP to a full meeting of Council on June 23 before the final version goes to the NSW Environment Minister by June 30.