Beach state hits crisis point
Calls for new ways to manage coastal erosion
A Townsville oceanographer believes that new council leadership could change a “pattern of ineffective erosion management” in Rowes Bay.
James Cook University Professor Eric Wolanski has long been critical of the Townsville City Council’s management of erosion and sand build-up at Pallarenda, which had stripped the area of beaches and replaced them with cliffs.
It comes as an online petition urging further erosion management, which has collected about 140 signatures and endorses the studies of Professor Wolanski, is circulated.
“The thing with the council is that they have been stuck in the pattern and done things that don’t work. We don’t have a beach in Rowes Bay, and you have got the sand spit in Pallarenda, so it shows it doesn’t work,” he said.
“But they’ve done that for such a long time that they don’t want to turn around and do something new because then it will make them look bad that they have done the wrong thing for such a long time.
“I’m hoping with the new people in charge that they will start to relook at what’s happening on the beaches and now do what I think should be done.”
Professor Wolanski said the problems could be better managed with two rock walls, known as groynes, to be built to keep beaches in Rowes Bay.
The area underneath the Three Mile Bridge also needed widening to improve water flow efficiency and prevent a build-up of sand.
Instead he said the Townsville City Council had managed the erosion by moving sand in two years within the past 13 to Rowes Bay which then disappeared and returned within several weeks.
Pallarenda resident Wendy Williams created an online petition available on the Townsville City Council website.
She said that a poor creek flow because of the “choke point” of the Three Mile Creek bridge was leading to an extension of mangroves and an extension of a sandbar.
“At the rate of extension of this sandbar, it will reach the
beach at the stinger net and boat ramp, and there will be significant loss of beach at Pallarenda,” she said.
“This loss of Pallarenda
Beach puts Pallarenda residents of increased risk of flooding and cyclone wave attack.”
A Townsville City Council spokeswoman said the council was “actively updating” its Shoreline Erosion Management Plans which had been established in 2010.
“This review is focused on integrating updated climate change data and evaluating changes in wind wave patterns in Cleveland Bay that may influence erosion and coastal behaviour,” she said.
The council did complete more detailed surveys after TC Kirrily early this year, and would be useful to predict further erosion events.