Carters Beach: ‘Prepare to move’
The beach is lapping near a community hall. Fifteen years ago, it was 100 metres from the sea.
Residents of a West Coast beachside settlement are building a sand bank in an effort to slow down the erosion of their domain.
They plan to build it themselves after rejecting costly options from the West Coast Regional Council to build rock and gravel protection against the sea. With a ratepayer base of only 300 people, they say $2 million for a rock wall is just too much.
Carters Beach Domain Reserve Committee says it can build a 600 metre sand bank using washed up logs and sand, donated materials and volunteer time for about $15,000.
The residents began building about 150m of the sand bund in emergency protection works after ex-Cyclone Fehi took about 50m of the domain in 2018 and forced the evacuation of residents on Marine Parade.
Committee spokesman Bruce Walsh said residents were scared the sea was going to claim its community hall which only has about 25m of grass left in front of it. The sand bund appeared to be doing its job so they now wanted to build it the length of the beach.
SATELLITE IMAGES SHOW RAPID EROSION
Ex-Cyclone Fehi caused nearly $46m in damage because it arrived at a particularly high tide, causing storm surges to flood over seawalls. The sea flooded the Carters Beach domain, surged up the Orowaiti River and flooded several homes in Westport.
Kevin and Patricia Lockett were amongst Carters Beach residents evacuated during Cyclone Fehi in February 2018.
Patricia Lockett, 76, said the couple were unaware of the erosion risk when they moved to the village from Christchurch in 2015, attracted by the sea views and peaceful atmosphere.
In the four years since, erosion of the coastline has been significant with a seaside road disappearing completely.
She said they were terrified when the sea began surging over the domain and reached the road opposite their house during the cyclone.
Kevin Lockett said the violent waves were tossing large logs towards their house ‘‘like someone throwing a stick for a dog’’. Luckily the sea stopped just short of inundating their property.
He believed the council, or the Government, should step in and help communities at risk.
Residents did not have millions of dollars for rock walls that would not solve the problem long-term.
‘‘There are a lot of elderly people living here and I think many might not be able to afford it. We are on the pension and $400 extra rates is a lot of money,’’ he said.
PREPARE TO MOVE
The Government announced in June it would invest $2m to repair Westport airport’s seawall in Carters Beach after it was damaged by ex-Cyclone Fehi.
About 300m of the 700m seawall collapsed, leaving only 58m of clearway on one side of the runway. A road to the airport had to be redirected after the sea ate it away. The wall will not protect about 2km of shoreline further south in front of the township.
The only barrier between houses and the sea is the Carters Beach Domain Reserve, which locals estimate has lost about 100m since 2003. It’s a beautiful spot with picnic areas, playground and a community hall. It once sported a tennis court, a cricket pitch and a rugby field, but now that’s all gone.
The community is running out of time to come up with solutions. The domain appears to be eroding faster than NIWA engineers predicted. A report by NIWA in
2017 said the community hall was
70m from the sea. It is now only
25m from the beach.
The report said it would be at least five years before the erosion reached the nearby community hall, and 10 to 15 years before homes would be at risk. It said the erosion had been slowing since
2003 and could stop before it reached the hall.
Michael Allis said Carters Beach had two significant storm events, Cyclone Fehi and Gita, since he wrote the report.
‘‘I haven’t updated my report but from looking at the most recent aerial images I can see erosion is continuing and the community needs to be prepared and prepare to move,’’ he said.
The threat of sea-level rise and continued erosion meant managed retreat was a long-term solution that faced many communities around New Zealand, he said.
West Coast towns like Granity and Hector, as well as townships on the Coromandel Peninsula were facing the same prospect of managed retreat. The Greater Wellington Regional Council has recently decided to undergo a managed retreat and relocate a surf club, tracks, parking areas, picnic areas and other buildings from a stretch of Ka¯ piti Coast.
ROADS, AIRPORTS, PIPES UNDER THREAT
New Zealand has the world’s ninth longest coastline, and millions of people living within 5km of the coast. Tens of thousands of people live within 50cm of the mean high tide mark, the area most at risk from sea-level rise.
Billions of dollars of infrastructure, including homes, airports, roads, underground pipes, parks and reserves, community facilities and social housing are at risk.
The most recent estimates, based on a draft report set to be published next year, show that around 125,000 buildings – both commercial and residential – would be at risk of flooding with 1m of sea-level rise. The replacement value is around $38 billion.
But the Government has no idea what percentage of New Zealand’s coast is currently at risk of erosion.
NIWA’s Rob Bell said New Zealand had not done a nationwide study on erosion since the 1970s. He was working with University of Auckland’s Mark Dickson to come up with comprehensive data on erosion including identifying hotspots and to come up with guidelines for agencies making decisions about how to protect communities. He expected it to be finished in two years.
SAND BUND PLAN
Buller district mayor Jamie Cleine said the Carters Beach community was pushing ahead with its plans to build a sand bund. He emphasises that the sand bund is not meant to be a solution to the erosion, but to prevent oversized waves from periodically flooding the road that runs along the coastline. Cleine said the sand dune will likely be a joint arrangements between residents and the council.
Carters Beach Domain Reserve committee spokesman Bruce Walsh said the West Coast Regional Council surveyed Carters Beach residents about paying for sea protection measures in June.
An estimated $2m for a rock wall had previously been rejected by the residents, so the council presented a $144,000 gravel-based sacrificial bund which would cost each ratepayer more than $130 per $100,000 capital value per year for the next five years.
It too was rejected after the survey showed 84 residents said they preferred building a sand bund themselves and only 42 wanted the council’s gravel bund.
He said the committee had fundraised and sourced donations and volunteers to build a 600m long sand bund from the community hall to Golf Links Rd.
The Buller District Council has issued a resource consent but the committee had yet to get consent from the regional council to take sand from the beach for the bund.
He said the regional council was reluctant to allow them to take sand from the beach because it could exacerbate the erosion. He disagreed.
‘‘The sand can shift half a metre overnight and three weeks later it’s back. We believe taking 200cum at low tide wouldn’t have a huge effect but we don’t have the scientific data to back that up,’’ he said.
LONG PROCESS
Historically, Carters Beach had gained 400m of coastline after the Buller River training walls were built in 1886. However, since 2003 the sea has reclaimed about 100m.
The committee dated back to 1938 and the average age of its current members was 76.
Walsh had read every report and monitored the beach every day having previously owned the Carters Beach holiday park for 16 years.
Walsh said most of the erosion occurred between 2003 and 2007 when 20m chunks of the domain would be lost in a week.
‘‘This has been going on 12 years. It’s been a hell of a process. The consent process alone took two years and I spent about two hours a day on it,’’ he said.
The committee had been battling for help from the district council for years, but he was happy the council and the committee were now working together and the council was willing to make a contribution to the sand bund.
The committee’s submission to the regional council had argued the protection should be built using funds from every ratepayer in the district because it was a councilowned reserve but the council had not allocated any of its $870,000 reserves annual maintenance fund to Carters Beach domain.
WHO WILL PAY?
The biggest question facing coastal communities is who will pay for communities to be protected or relocated.
The Government, for the first time, is mapping out what New Zealand as a whole risks losing to the varied effects of climate change.
The National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) will outline how the expected effects of climate change – such as warmer temperatures, increased heavy rainfall, and rising sea-levels – would affect natural, physical, and financial assets across the country.
The first stage of the risk assessment is expected to be completed by the middle of 2020.
This won’t work out who should pay to solve it: Government, local councils, or homeowners.
Seas around New Zealand are now rising 3-4mm a year.
According to Bell, a coastal oceanographer at Niwa, that’s double the rate of 25 years ago.
‘‘Waves, tides, everything are riding on the back of this higher baseline sea-level,’’ Bell says.
‘‘By the middle of this century, as sea-level increases, coastal flooding will become the dominant coastal hazard risk. Once you start to get to half a metre or so, extensive areas will get flooded.’’
For Bruce Walsh, who is building a new house on a section overlooking the Tasman Sea, he compares the threat of erosion to the tale of Chicken Little who incorrectly believes the sky is falling in. ‘‘Erosion and climate change is something we need to be aware of but I don’t believe it will come up to the residential areas of Carters Beach. If I did I wouldn’t be building my new home here.’’