The fallacy of 'Retreat' for Coastal Zone Management

As is happening at Byron, will it be the way of the future that property owners will have to use the courts to force local councils to comply with their own charters for care and maintenance of the community? Is this a fair go? There is increasing social tension developing in coastal communities between property owners from all walks of life and the civil servants, who are paid by the taxpayer. Currently, sequels of ‘retreat’ have flowed onto objections to NSW Land Tax assessments. Should property owners pay land tax if their property has been condemned by government legislation? Government actions could effectively criminalise Australian mums and dads as they battle with pick and shovel to protect their properties in the face of laws that make it illegal for them to do so.

So entrenched has ‘retreat’ ideology become in NSW that the Clarence Valley Council (CVC) commissioned a study by consulting engineers with the pre-determined outcome that inundation was inevitable, and that ‘retreat’ was mandatory. This came after a background of inaction for many years, despite data showing loss of dune-tops that particularly worsened during the storm surges of early 2009. Council conveniently ignored their own CZMP’s. Among other actions, its own statutory advisory body - the Coastal and Estuaries Management Committee - in June 2010 voted to adopt ‘retreat’ preceding the release of the engineering report. The final highly flawed document was desk based, used out-dated concepts, and made no allowances for new technologies in the adaptive management of coastal dune erosion.

In what has been a massive public relations disaster for the CVC, the rubber-stamping exercise failed, after over 120 written submissions were received on behalf of the Wooli community who did not want to lose their town. A highly focused community organisation www.savewooli.com and www.protectwooli.com has produced its own scoping engineering report which comments incidentally, that the Wooli community has more to fear from its local council than from coastal dune erosion! This is understandable when it is considered that a major plank of the CVC proposal was to relocate the beachfront home dwellers to a swamp outside of town. Migrants to Australia will understand that history records that forced relocations of populations carries a hideous social cost.

Financial analysis of the costs of relocation has shown that it is indeed high, particularly when the cost of relocating essential services is considered. The community asks: "Why is Retreat to be the only option?” Why do Councils ignore other expert opinions that show that in the case of Wooli, there is a unique sand ecosystem in which sand distribution can be modified to rebuild the dunes, increase the beach, and protect the whole town? In the old days, say the locals, the massive sand bank in the now clogged river would have been dredged back over on to the dune, or even a bulldozer (beach scraping) used to push up sand naturally delivered to the beach by wave action.

These measures and the like can be taken for a much lower cost than forced relocation. Newer, and yes, more expensive technologies, as applied at Narrowneck Beach on the Gold Coast see the offshore installation of sand bag structures which act as baffles to reduce wave impact on the beach. In turn, they have helped to protect the beach from erosion, was well as creating self-perpetuating positive tourism and lifestyle benefits.

The climate change ideologues have with a ‘science’ best understood by them, seized an agenda, and forced through legislation, which now threatens the homes and lifestyles of many Australians. We are given no choice in the matter and are forced-fed agendas that are all doom and gloom. More immediate concerns about the need to evaluate the impact of wave and storm damage on coastal dunes, and the ways these problems can be constructively addressed, are ignored.

A more rational case accepts that sea levels have fluctuated in the past, and even if there is considerable sea level rise in the future, there is a longer time frame in which adaptation to, and protection from, sea level rise is possible. With positive attitudes, it will be possible to preserve our coastal lifestyle for our grandchildren, and their grandchildren. Even with current technology we can turn a ten or twenty year event, if we do nothing, into a one or two hundred-year event: if we act.

Local councils have slipped into the shadowy world of ‘retreat’. At the nineteen coastal hotspots they have shown themselves unwilling and unable to deal adequately with these problems and engage constructive solutions to coastal beach erosion. These complex issues are too important to be left in the rubbery hands of local government as in NSW. We are now at a crossroad. We have fresh opportunities with a new state government. Coastal NSW town and village communities deserve, and look forward to, government leadership and protection. After all, the land tax and rates to be generated in years to come, more than justifies further investment in protecting our communities in the present. What about our Australian lifestyle, are we to allow it to be condemned and lost to the sands of time?