By Jon Temby

BASS Coast Shire Council’s financial report for 2025-26 shows coastal erosion programs cost our shire an extra $470,000 above what we had already budgeted for these works and  several million dollars from the state government.  

In moving that we accept the report at last week’s council meeting, I commented: “Funding of coastal erosion projects (and inundation) is commendable in one sense; however, it creates a false expectation, a sense-of-entitlement precedent that cannot be funded at local, state or federal levels. Those at risk of inundation and other climate change-related risks need to take this on board.”

It is a gut-wrenching situation for those who have lived in these areas for decades, and some assistance to them would appear fair and warranted. But with the science of climate change now clear, those choosing to move into high-risk areas should not expect a financial bailout. Buyer beware now applies.

As a child, more than 60 years ago, I first saw the consequences of coastal erosion at first hand. In 1964 a massive Easter storm, coupled with high tides, took away many metres of beach in front of our family’s holiday shack at Silverleaves, on Phillip Island.  The high tide waves were washing our house stumps and splashing the windows, the banksias and ti-trees had been washed away and the wash from the waves went all the way down our foot track to the then sandy Silverleaves Avenue. Several of our friends’ houses had deep water under them. Overnight the beach became unrecognisable.   

It will happen again.

That storm occurred well before the significant sea level rises we must now contend with as a result of not addressing the main causes of climate change when we had a greater chance to.  My father was a research scientist in the oil industry and back in the 1960s, he told us about the likelihood that burning fossil fuels would cause climate change.  It is old knowledge and the fossil fuel industry has been very successful in hiding that direct link, just as the tobacco lobby did for lung cancer.

My parents had science and education backgrounds, including in physics, chemistry, metallurgy and physical geography.  They also had strong environmental interests.  They knew that wave and current energy needs to be dissipated, not blocked.  Physics principles are important.  When waves are blocked the energy still exists and the ongoing scouring of sand occurs. We need solutions that dissipate energy to the extent that the wave weakens, and sand carried in the currents and wave action then drops.  

They discovered that ti-tree branches, left over from clearing building sites for the fibro shacks then going up at Silverleaves, could dissipate wave energy and trap sand. They enlisted other local families to build a series of mostly ti-tree groynes perpendicular to the beach, from above high tide level to well past the high tide wave break if we had enough material. 

Over many years this work resulted in over 76 metres of vegetated foreshore outside our place and those of our close neighbours with the high tide level beyond the vegetation. Permeable groynes are now used elsewhere and an internet search will demonstrate good examples.

I have seen reports that there was “natural beach accretion” occurring at the eastern end of Silverleaves.  That statement was not correct; it was all man made and at the initiative of my parents. My father kept accurate measurements of beach height and width from our place at Silverleaves up to Observation Point over many years and would keep us informed of changes.  They were usually positive around our place and often negative elsewhere.  I wish I had those records today.

We tend to accept the sometimes-misguided approach taken by government departments to address coastal inundation and erosion, especially on beaches like Silverleaves. It's unlikely to stand up to surf beach waves and currents, but we should explore sensitive, nature-based approaches rather than automatically resorting to expensive hard engineering.

Now that we live elsewhere and are no longer adding to the Silverleaves ti-tree groynes, significant erosion and recession of the “natural beach accretion” shoreline is again occurring, with the avoidable loss of many metres of foreshore and its vegetation and increasing the risk of inundation.  

The north facing beach, from Cowes to near Observation point, has been naturally receding for a very long time, with records showing over 140 metres of recession near Cowes before the 1970s. During the 1960s we saw an abundance of freshly fallen and older bleached trees plus barbed wire fencing along the foreshore near Cowes when walking into town to buy bread. Much of that sand has significantly extended the length of Observation Point, several kilometres to the east. 

Even with sensitive attention and the use of an equivalent material to ti-tree to build groynes,  ongoing sea level rise, prevailing winds and currents and the low-lying land at Silverleaves make its future very concerning.  The principles behind the success of the process as described clearly works very well.  Where there is higher ground behind the beach, the process will have greater sustainability.

No government can sustain the current costs of addressing the impacts of climate change: more extreme erosion, bushfires, floods, windstorms, inundations, extinctions, loss of biodiversity or our insurance premiums and stranded assets. We will all pay for our earlier ignorance and/or complacency. 

Whether widely supported or not, we now need our younger generations to take charge and demand real and sustainable action to ensure that they and future generations have a safe and enjoyable planet to live on.  To do anything else is short-sighted, selfish and dangerously unacceptable.