Slip sliding away: Beach land vanishes
A couple whose beach-front property is crumbling into the sea are desperate for someone to take responsibility before their piece of paradise washes away. When Rodney Inteman and Shirley Cameron bought their stunning Waikawa Beach property, called Interville, in Horowhenua two years ago, it had a row of ‘‘huge’’ sand dunes between them and the beach. Since then the Waikawa River has changed course, carrying away the dunes and 12 metres of their land. The couple say over 18 months they have made many requests to the Horizons Regional and Horowhenua District councils to take action, but there had been no indication anything specific would be done. Staff at both councils have said they disagreed about which organisation has responsibility for erosion problems. When approached about the couple’s plight, neither council answered questions about what responsibility it had, or whether it would offer any direct help. Both said they would fund an expert investigation into the erosion problems, with funding sources for potential work to be discussed next year. Since February, the wandering river had also cut off the township’s only vehicle access to the beach, leaving residents in the fishing-mad town frustrated. In late June, the district council paid for a ‘‘river cut’’ using a digger to form a channel through sand from the Waikawa River’s outlet directly to the water, to divert it from the course near Interville. However, the $10,000 cut lasted only days, and the river returned to its problematic new course. Inteman and Cameron had the edge of their property reinforced, but the strapping was undermined by the river’s new course and washed away in a storm. The success of erosion protection also relies on the stability of adjoining land, and one neighbouring property is a councilowned reserve that also needed erosion control work, the couple said. ‘‘They gave resource consent for people to build houses here. There’s been rates paid on these properties for 30-odd years and now when it comes to protecting what they’ve given consent for they just aren’t here,’’ Cameron said. ‘‘Every week, it’s alarming – all along here it’s disappearing by the minute.’’ District council property and parks manager Arthur Nelson said the investigation would look at ‘‘longer-term management’’, and the river cut ‘‘has resolved the local river erosion, however the coastline is still subject to tidal and storm erosion’’. But Waikawa Beach Residents’ Association secretary Kevin Burns said the river cut had not been successful, had ‘‘disappeared completely within a week’’, and the river was aggressively carving away land at the beachfront properties.