Erosion `worst ever’ at Ocean Beach after king tide
LAST month’s king tide and heavy southerly seas have caused further erosion along the waterfront between Ettalong Point and Ocean Beach Surf Club.
Central Coast
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LAST month’s king tide and heavy southerly seas have caused further erosion along the waterfront between Ettalong Point and Ocean Beach Surf Club.
The damage occurred just days after Central Coast Council announced nearly $500,000 in joint council and state funding to come up with a long-term solution to the erosion problem plaguing the stretch of sand all the way to Umina Beach.
The latest erosion forced council to put up red and white hazard tape, and signs warning people to keep clear because the dunes were “highly unstable and at risk of collapse”.
Peninsula Chamber of Commerce president Matthew Wales said the erosion was the worst he had ever seen.
The king tide and wave motion undercut chunks of vegetation, collapsed trees and also disrupted and shifted sandbags and star pickets used in earlier works to stabilise parts of the dunes.
Mr Wales said the new signage and hazard tape put up by Central Coast Council was a short-term reaction, but a long-term solution had to be found.
“They have done the bare minimum, and I suspect it’s just to cover their butts from a public liability point,” he said.
Mr Wales said the business community welcomed the funding towards studies and understanding the way sediment moved in Broken Bay, with the view of designing a long-term strategy for protecting The Esplanade.
“It’s very unpredictable, but I still believe this all comes back to the dredging of Ettalong Channel,” he said.
A council spokeswoman said until a long-term solution could be found the council would continue to monitor the situation, maintain a temporary wall over 100m of the beach and continue a beach scraping program to move sand around as required.