WITH rock walls and other stop-gap measures doing little if anything to counter the erosion of Stockton Beach, the City of Newcastle now believes that "offshore" sand pumped or dredged from the adjacent sea floor might be the best way to stabilise and restore the fast-disappearing beach.
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At Tuesday night's council meeting, Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes tabled a 2017 technical report produced for the NSW government that described offshore sand extraction as "probably the only viable [method] for large-scale beach nourishment on the open coast" of NSW.
The report notes that while offshore extraction was "common" in other states and countries, it was not done for beach nourishment, or any other purpose, in NSW. Newcastle council wants "clarification" from the government on its attitude towards offshore dredging before it proceeds any further with the idea.
Given the costs involved, the council would need government assistance to fund such a project. The Tweed Sand Bypass project on the Gold Coast, which has added 200 metres to the sand width of Kirra Beach, has cost more than $136 million since 1999, with the NSW and Queensland governments and the Gold Coast council footing the bill.
Citing various examples, the report notes that "soft" management such as offshore dredging has largely replaced "structural" management - such as groynes and breakwalls - when it comes to coastal protection.
It says a well-designed, constructed and maintained nourishment project can be "undetectable" to those who don't know it's artificial, with the Kirra project cited as an example. Environmental concerns, on the other hand, include damage to the sea-floor and sea-life caught up in the dredging process, as well as the potential burial of biota-rich near-offshore reefs.
As it happens, the council has already looked into replenishing Stockton, with a detailed 2012 study putting the capital cost of an offshore dredging program at between about $6 million and $10 million to move an initial 515,000 cubic metres of sand. Maintenance dredging to supply another 30,000 tonnes a year, would cost another $1.2 million to $5.6 million annually.
With an entire new suburb planned for North Stockton and Fern Bay, the time has come to look seriously at a Gold Coast-style solution to Stockton's erosion problems.
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