Dredging and barging sand along Adelaide's disappearing coastline to be trialled

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A two-month trial is set for Adelaide's suburban beaches where sand will be dredged offshore from northern beaches and barged and deposited to southern beaches.

Transcript

00:00 How to manage Adelaide's northern beaches has long divided coastal communities.

00:06 Now two years after the latest review was launched, the State Government has a new plan.

00:12 What the scientific review concluded was that the option that scored the highest was near

00:20 shore dredging.

00:21 It will see sand dredged from between North Haven and Taperoo, then sent by barge along

00:26 the coastline then dropped around West Beach, an area which has struggled with erosion for

00:31 years.

00:32 What that will mean with near shore dredging is you won't have heavy machinery, trucks

00:37 and excavators on the beaches around Largs and Semaphore.

00:41 It's a two month trial to begin with, but the Government hopes dredging will become

00:45 part of the permanent fix.

00:47 Sand carting to West Beach will continue, with another 200,000 cubic metres to be dumped

00:53 there from other sources over the next 12 months.

00:56 All sand is good sand, but we have one significant problem.

00:59 We still have trucks on our beach because we're still using quarry sand.

01:02 They've not resolved that issue.

01:04 What we are keen to see is a long term viable solution on our coastline, not a wish list.

01:11 While the sand pipeline running north to south, which the Government scrapped on coming to

01:14 office in 2022, remains on the table should the dredging not be viable.

01:20 Hindley Beach residents are also facing another issue.

01:23 They say asbestos pieces from long demolished beach huts have started to wash up, exposed

01:28 and moved by continued coastal erosion.

01:31 This week someone picked up 15 pieces, so we're seeing a lot of it on the beach.

01:37 Charles Sturt Council says its staff and beach patrols visit the area daily and are helping

01:42 safely dispose of the material.

01:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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