Loved by countless generations, now under threat ... finally we have a plan to address erosion.
By Ed Thexton
IN THE 1980s I’d come down to visit Mum in Inverloch and marvel at the contrast between the diverse subtle beauty of the Inverloch beach and the blighted creeks of the northern suburbs. I knew rather too much of those urban wastelands as coordinator of the Northern Waterways Project working on the Darebin and Merri Creeks and the Plenty River. Walking was a hazard, and natural remnants reduced to glimpses. Millions of dollars and decades of work have brought them from places of post-industrial communal blight to precious communal assets.
IN THE 1980s I’d come down to visit Mum in Inverloch and marvel at the contrast between the diverse subtle beauty of the Inverloch beach and the blighted creeks of the northern suburbs. I knew rather too much of those urban wastelands as coordinator of the Northern Waterways Project working on the Darebin and Merri Creeks and the Plenty River. Walking was a hazard, and natural remnants reduced to glimpses. Millions of dollars and decades of work have brought them from places of post-industrial communal blight to precious communal assets.
Meanwhile, the Inverloch beach was provided gratis, even washed and rewashed twice a day. It’s a rich environment, loved by the Bunurong for millennia and by European settlers for almost two centuries. (Perhaps not so much by the crew of the shipwrecked Amazon who spent a week on it in 1863.)
How times have changed! Bass Strait has crashed in with all its might for a decade or more and it’s now approaching a time of reckoning. The time has come to pay if our beautiful beach is to provide the basic safe, reliable experiences that so many of us treasure. How unfair! Erosion of dunes has robbed us of our buffer, leaving tall, unstable (and dangerous) sand cliffs and threatening the surf club, roads, footpaths and houses.
How times have changed! Bass Strait has crashed in with all its might for a decade or more and it’s now approaching a time of reckoning. The time has come to pay if our beautiful beach is to provide the basic safe, reliable experiences that so many of us treasure. How unfair! Erosion of dunes has robbed us of our buffer, leaving tall, unstable (and dangerous) sand cliffs and threatening the surf club, roads, footpaths and houses.
But some things don’t change. Community leadership is one of those things. Just as the locals of the Darebin Parklands Association in the 1970s kicked off the now global urban waterway rehabilitation phenomena so did the South Gippsland Conservation Society kick off beach monitoring in 2012. It focused on the couple of kilometres of the eroding Inverloch Surf Beach and was followed by investigative report and publication of The Inverloch Coastal Resilience Project in 2018.
The axiom “Don’t look to the government for leadership. Leadership comes from the Community” still holds true. Where community leads, government follow. From local action at Inverloch the Cape-to-Cape Resilience Project was born. Recognising that erosion isn’t an isolated occurrence it took in the 80 or so kilometres of coast from Cape Paterson round Andersons Inlet to Cape Liptrap.
Like the waterways, coastlines are sites of overlapping responsibilities. Nine government agencies and the Bunurong Land Council were brought together to form the Regional and Strategic Partnership (RaSP) managed by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA). It’s the first of its type anywhere on the 2500km Victorian coast and a much more efficient way of getting agreement than one authority producing a plan and then putting it around for all the rest to pull apart.
The axiom “Don’t look to the government for leadership. Leadership comes from the Community” still holds true. Where community leads, government follow. From local action at Inverloch the Cape-to-Cape Resilience Project was born. Recognising that erosion isn’t an isolated occurrence it took in the 80 or so kilometres of coast from Cape Paterson round Andersons Inlet to Cape Liptrap.
Like the waterways, coastlines are sites of overlapping responsibilities. Nine government agencies and the Bunurong Land Council were brought together to form the Regional and Strategic Partnership (RaSP) managed by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA). It’s the first of its type anywhere on the 2500km Victorian coast and a much more efficient way of getting agreement than one authority producing a plan and then putting it around for all the rest to pull apart.
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Even so it has taken four years to produce the Cape to Cape Resilience Project report based on investigation, evaluation, analysis and planning. Yes, the South Gippsland Conservation Society has been hammering for quicker movement. We all wanted quicker results. But on coastlines in our state and elsewhere evidence of unintended consequences are graphic. (See the Narrawong estate erosion on Portland Bay for an example.)
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Proposed timeline for Inverloch Surf Beach dune reconstruction Nov 2024 Tender out for dune design Dec 2024 Community engagement Jan 2025 Draft design due Feb 2025 Community engagement March 25 Finalise designs April 2025 Tender for construction Aug-Nov 25 Undertake nourishment |
Understanding the complexity of ocean forces and modelling a response was always going to take time. We can count ourselves fortunate to have such a researched basis for work, assessed against global best practice.
With the larger report and seven supporting study reports providing the context, the focus is once again on the few kilometres of Inverloch Surf Beach. A pathway has been defined and now is the time for action.
The approach is for a program of works over years to counter the effects of waves driven by Bass Strait storms of unknown force, duration, or frequency – more a matter of when, not if, they will occur.
In spring 2025 we will see the start of large-scale dune reconstruction designed to counter the wave erosion. There is a certain logic and elegance to using and relying on the most abundant and efficiently sourced local resource – sand. The dune will be no less engineered than any other coastal protection of any material.
Adaptive management sees an initial bulk investment and subsequent inputs directed by the response of works to climatic circumstances. At its core the approach concedes to the unpalatable reality of ongoing ocean level rise, where change is inevitable. It’s hard to get your head around but it is science, not opinion.
This is not an engineering project executed in isolation; the beach is our communal resource. Naturally the community wants to be engaged. DEECA is keen to establish a community reference group. The employment of an Inverloch Beach Co-ordinator is also crucial to provide a focal point for the project and to give the community confidence.
Stationed in Inverloch, with the support of all, this would be the go-to person for all queries related to the project and Inverloch beach issues as a whole. As a member of the community, they also bring invaluable local knowledge. For instance, if the contractors are planning works in August that will disrupt beach visitors, the co-ordinator would tell them to avoid the Inverloch Jazz Festival.
The co-ordinator can be funded by the agency or the council, or both, but they must be employed by the community because the community wants their say. They would liaise with DEECA and the other agencies, respond to the community and report to the community reference group.
Therein lies the purpose of the community reference group – to bring the community along with the project, to make the project real and visible to residents and visitors alike. In this way the community can do what it does best - drive.
Ed Thexton is president of the South Gippsland Conservation Society.
With the larger report and seven supporting study reports providing the context, the focus is once again on the few kilometres of Inverloch Surf Beach. A pathway has been defined and now is the time for action.
The approach is for a program of works over years to counter the effects of waves driven by Bass Strait storms of unknown force, duration, or frequency – more a matter of when, not if, they will occur.
In spring 2025 we will see the start of large-scale dune reconstruction designed to counter the wave erosion. There is a certain logic and elegance to using and relying on the most abundant and efficiently sourced local resource – sand. The dune will be no less engineered than any other coastal protection of any material.
Adaptive management sees an initial bulk investment and subsequent inputs directed by the response of works to climatic circumstances. At its core the approach concedes to the unpalatable reality of ongoing ocean level rise, where change is inevitable. It’s hard to get your head around but it is science, not opinion.
This is not an engineering project executed in isolation; the beach is our communal resource. Naturally the community wants to be engaged. DEECA is keen to establish a community reference group. The employment of an Inverloch Beach Co-ordinator is also crucial to provide a focal point for the project and to give the community confidence.
Stationed in Inverloch, with the support of all, this would be the go-to person for all queries related to the project and Inverloch beach issues as a whole. As a member of the community, they also bring invaluable local knowledge. For instance, if the contractors are planning works in August that will disrupt beach visitors, the co-ordinator would tell them to avoid the Inverloch Jazz Festival.
The co-ordinator can be funded by the agency or the council, or both, but they must be employed by the community because the community wants their say. They would liaise with DEECA and the other agencies, respond to the community and report to the community reference group.
Therein lies the purpose of the community reference group – to bring the community along with the project, to make the project real and visible to residents and visitors alike. In this way the community can do what it does best - drive.
Ed Thexton is president of the South Gippsland Conservation Society.