New plan to arrest sand loss
THE tide is turning for Holloways Beach after years of trying in vain to slow the steady march of erosion.
Cairns Regional Council is looking at two chief options for stopping the gradual exodus of sand from the quiet beach.
“There’s been a lot of wasted money, as we know, at Holloways with sand being replenished and disappearing within weeks,” Division 8 councillor Jessie Richardson said.
The council’s infrastructure services general manager, Bruce Gardiner, said $50,000 had been set aside for the works in 2019-20, with a further $600,000 earmarked for 2020-21.
“The likely options we will now look at investigating further are either installing a single groyne at Oleander St or potentially multiple smaller groynes along the southern part of the beach,” Mr Gardiner told the last council meeting.
The most recent campaign to rectify the erosion problem was in 2016, when 30,000 cubic metres of sand was pumped along the beach at a cost of $640,000.
A report to the council stated there had been “relatively rapid loss” of sand particularly from upper beach areas in front of the rock seawall.
Mr Gardiner believed there was an appetite to fix the issue.
“A few years ago the proposal was to put in a number of small groynes, and that was met with some resistance from residents from a visual amenity point of view,” he said.
“I think we can actually design something that will visually not detract from the environment out there.”