Staff reporters
The building of a rock revetment wall at Belongil Beach is now certain after Byron Shire Council received $300,000 for coastal protection works for the beachfront south of Belongil Creek.
The announcement was made yesterday by environment minister Robyn Parker and minister for the North Coast Don Page during a visit by Ms Parker to Byron Bay.
The rocks will replace the ageing 10-year-old sandbag wall, which is coming apart after being lashed by numerous storms in recent years, and comes despite considerable community opposition and follows a resolution by Byron Shire Council.
Byron Shire Council took the decision to rebuild the wall in March after storms early in the year caused sand scarping and the closure of Belongil Beach access.
Mr Page described Belongil Beach as ‘a coastal erosion hotspot with 21 houses currently at risk from coastal erosion during severe storms’.
Ms Parker said, ‘there are no simple solutions to coastal erosion along this stretch of the coastline and these works will assist council to manage immediate impacts of the waves, while working to develop long-term solutions for the area.’
Mr Page said, ‘this funding will enable the use of rocks as an alternative to the existing geobags (as per council resolution) for the protection of the Manfred Street public access area on Belongil Spit’.
He added, ‘in order to assess and address coastal hazards, Byron Shire Council is currently preparing a coastal zone management plan for the Byron Bay coastline including Belongil Beach, with ongoing financial and technical assistance from the NSW Government’.
The opportunity is still there for “the Coastal Zone Management Plan for the Byron Bay Coastline” to be a 21st century innovation. It can work with the well known history of erosion as our coastal zone shifts again. It can support the Belongil spit and Belongil and Tallow estuaries in their roles as sea-water managers and sea-fish nurses, the beaches as marine/human community social conveners. It can integrate these areas so that the coastal zone can network as a whole from one end of the Shire to the other.
lets hope they spend the money wisely by actually building something rather than on a study or report as per usual..good on the liberals for doing something constructive…whatever happened to the idea of dredging the brunswick river?
From: Jan Hackett
RIP Belongil Beach.
There are so many defensive structures that can benefit both residential development and the maintenance of the beach. But rocks are not one of them. Storms have come and gone for eons and recent swells are not the greatest we have ever experienced in the Bay. But with the roll out of rocks on the beach at Main and Belongil, human intervention has steadily, over the last decade, irrevocably eroded our foreshores and primary playground. Sand bags have worked reasonably well as a temporary defense in the past, but with people slicing them apart and dumped rocks creating deep water trenches, the beach has absolutely no chance to revive and survive. Effectively, human mismanagement has worked hand in glove with the caprice of the ocean to diminish and damage our beaches.
Council please note – ROCKS ARE NOT A TEMPORARY OPTION. Once on the beach they are there forever. And they will be undermined just as the current rocks are being undermined, and eventually break-up the sand spit that separates the creek from the ocean. Like Noosa, it will sink and open up and flood – not a pretty outcome.
RIP Belongil Beach.