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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-10-29 Daily Xml
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Coastline Protection

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:09): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. What work has been done to date to identify an appropriate external source of sand for West Beach?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:09): This is a question that gives me the opportunity to speak about what is a great project for developing the climate resilience, as the deputy leader mentioned in her previous question, of our metropolitan coastline. We know that Adelaide's coastline is under substantial threat from rising sea levels, from increasing storm events and from human interaction, and we know that that manifests itself in particularly vulnerable spots along the coastline, none more vulnerable than the communities of West Beach and Henley Beach South.

These are really the victim of a range of processes: the natural south to north drift of sand but also man-made infrastructure that exacerbates the movement of sand and has led to very significant erosion at West Beach and Henley Beach South. That's spreading up the coastline to Henley Beach and Grange as well, and we know that that cell within our metropolitan coastline is particularly vulnerable. It has been great to have advocacy, over the last couple of years, from the member for Colton as he has sought to fight for his community and ensure that this government is focused on strengthening our metropolitan coastline, building in climate resilience and ensuring that we have a very clear plan to sustain the metro coastline—to sustain it for the environment, to sustain it to protect built infrastructure and to sustain it for lifestyle and recreation as well.

Our plan to sustain our coastline includes three elements: firstly, getting an initial injection of sand into the West Beach area. Granted, there have been some challenges in sourcing that sand in recent days, but we have had to be pragmatic about that, work alongside residents and have pretty up-front conversations at times. We have now established a way forward with that, and that will give us an initial load of sand to take into West Beach. Then we will be examining, as the deputy leader asks, an external source of sand to ensure we have a mass replenishment available for West Beach and Henley Beach South.

We are undertaking studies at the moment as to where that sand can be located from, particularly in terms of the quality of the sand, whether it is the appropriate grain of sand and, of course, considering things like external contaminants and the like. There are a number of possibilities in terms of places that sand could be sourced from, including the offshore site around Port Stanvac. They also include onshore sites.

I know that in the past, when the last mass replenishment occurred, sand was located from the Mount Compass area, from the sand quarries there. I think the preference for this project would be an offshore deposit of sand that has been pushed out into the area around O'Sullivan's Beach and Port Stanvac. We are investigating that at the moment. It will take some time in terms of understanding the quantities that are available, the appropriateness of that sand and the strategy for getting it out.

The last component of the replenishment program is to build the sand reticulation pipeline from the Semaphore area through to West Beach to ensure that the south-north sand drift, the natural drift, can be recycled round and round the system, reversing the natural drift and securing West Beach and Henley Beach South once and for all, which I know is what those communities represented by the member for Colton are so keen to see.

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