Protect Wooli

Protect Wooli From Coastal Erosion

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Legal Twist in the Tale

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Do beach-front landowners have the right to defend their homes from the ocean and do governments have a duty to help them? Legal disputes over ownership of land gradually surrendered to the sea date back to 14th-century England.

Last year the NSW Parliament changed legislation to make it easier for owners to defend their properties. However, the Supreme Court may soon be asked to clarify this long debated question for all NSW coastal townships including Wooli, as reported in this  article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

CCPA Steering Committee members are in regular consultation with other hotspot community leaders to stay on top of this issue and consider responses should that be necessary.

 

 

 

Historical observations and ideas

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There is a valuable  untapped resource, that can really improve our understanding of the processes that shape Wooli beach.

That is the collective knowledge, records and observations of the community. As evidenced in November 2010 community meeting, there are many photographic records and hypotheses about:

  1. What happens on the beach
  2. Why it happens
  3. What evidence supports (2)
  4. How we might use these ideas to improve outcomes.

The Wooli community is engaged in a learning journey. It is important that we collate this missing link data because it represents a great wealth of time based data, that we simply cant get from other sources and it  will provide clues to look for in future data gathering.

Bob Stack is our initial contributor of anecdotal observations and ideas ( plus photos including the one above). In a submission to Council’s on the draft Emergency Action Subplan  a key observation Bob noted was that  if we could prevent the North/South flow along the base of the dune it would greatly reduce erosion of the dune. Read his complete submission.

Brian Saye, our resident surveyor has been busy over the 2011/12 holiday period capturing the impacts of high tides and large swells on Wooli beach. You can see from his photos taken over several days that the beach copes well for a time then starts to erode as the high point of the beach (call the berm) is breached and water starts to race along the base of the dune to escape back to sea.  Brian Saye’s report on Swell Event photos 24 to 26-12-11

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daryl Harper, Len OShea, Bruce Bird, Bob Stack and Tim Heldt have been swapping emails about the best way to trap sand to protect the base of the dunes during high tides and storm swells. Bob’s photos show the dangerous gutter that can form and accelerate dune erosion.email discussion on channel at base of the dune

 

Historical Evidence

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There is an untapped resource in Wooli with the potential to contribute substantially to our understanding of what has shaped the beach and river over past years and decades:  the collective knowledge, records and observations of the community. Our research contacts at University of Queensland and at ASR Ltd emphasised the value of this type of data.  It is clear from meetings and informal discussions that there are many photographic records and opinions about what happens on the beach and why, supporting evidence and ideas about improving the beach protection strategy.

We are conducting an exercise to  gather the photos, observations and ideas of the Wooli community which will then be collated and made available to potential researches, and other stakeholders.

Tim Heldt will facilitate the process with support from Daryl and Marlene Harper.  Juliet Thommason will make sure we get good quality copies of the material loaned to us. But the vital people are those in the Wooli community who have seen and photographed the changing face of the river and beach.

 

If you can contribute stories or photos or just ideas, contact  Tim Heldt at wild-ash@bigpond.net.au, Daryl Harper at daryl.h@optusnet.com.au or see Bruce at the Post Office. Please identify photos and documents with your name or better still, copy or scan them so that irreplaceable originals don’t get lost.  All originals will be scanned and returned and the results of the study will go up on the Protect Wooli website.