Crushing lack of foresight and memory
Around most if Australia councils have been planting beach vegetation and restoring the dune structure. Clearly, there were substantial problems the councils were trying to solve by doing so.
Could it be that without the beach vegetation that thousands of tonnes of sand can blow onto the council and private assets beside the beach and cause problems?
Has the council considered the possible litigation and damages bills it will be liable for by removing a perfectly function sand control vegetation system, and exposing multi million dollar properties to sand inundation and roof or wall collapse from blown sand?
Additionally, the shared paths for cycling and walking will be regularly unsafe to ride due to sand. Roads and drains will also need regular clearing. Additionally, due to rising sea levels, more expensive hard engineered sea walls will likely need to be installed to protect the exposed homes and council assets.
Does this council really have to repeat history by removing plants to find out why they were installed across the country in the first place? A few humble, and occasionally unattractive plants save the council thousands of paid work hours, machinery and fuel costs, footpath and road management problems, private litigation and compensation issues.
Perhaps the council should cost how much it would be to install seawalls along the entire coastline? Then compare that cost to the work produced by some humble plants that get a little scarped sometimes.
Bondi beach has a seawall. They had to replace some railings on it recently that were destroyed in rough seas. Those seas produced very damaging reflective waves too.
A recent CSIRO paper estimated the cost of soft engineering (plants and vegetation) was ten times less expensive than hard engineering solutions to dissipate the increasing damage from coastal risks and storm events.
A better result at a tenth of the cost? That's the solution council needs to support and educate the community about!
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