Commenting on Cr Duncan Dey’s trip to the beach two weeks ago: I can see the rose-tinted glasses are firmly on here but allow me to disturb the nirvana and make a similar point to Mary Gardner’s article in last week’s paper. The point is that it’s actually very hard to find an unspoilt ‘swamp’ or untouched beach anywhere in Byron Shire and certainly not Tyagarah as you allude to.
The fact is that the beaches along the Bay of Byron are simply not a good example of the pristine. If anything, they were a hive of industrial activity from 1870 onwards until the mid-1980s when tourism arrived to save the town after the closure of the meatworks. Can I suggest you firstly read your own council’s Heritage Study before waxing lyrical hogwash?
The reality is that up until the closure of Walkers Meatworks in 1984, the beaches in Byron Shire were a vital component of the very significant industrial endeavours that made up the Byron Shire. All that intensive industry along all our beaches for over 100 years and not a white shoe in sight; think about that as you sit in front of Council’s rocks that protect Wategos or the rock works that stabilise Main Beach and all that lies beyond.
On your analysis, a beach is not a beach if it has any protection works such as revetment walls or groynes. So how would you classify some of the most iconic beaches in Australia – Bondi Beach, Manly Beach and Wategos – all protected by historic rock works?
On local coastal processes, unlike some minds, Byron’s beaches are not part of a closed system. Byron’s beaches do not rely on a sand dune behind for their replenishment and existence as you simplistically suggest. Local beach sand has a well-documented, long northward journey to the Gold Coast, Stradbroke, Morton and finally Fraser, the biggest sand island in the world. Sand long delayed by the Jonson Street rock works arrives later on Belongil Beach, alas often too late to replenish before the next storm. Solutions are there – closed minds won’t find them.
John Vaughan, Belongil Beach
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
