LINE IN THE SAND COLLAROY : SAY NO TO VERTICAL SEA WALLS

On Saturday November 27th hundreds of locals came down to Collaroy Beach / North Narrabeen Beach in grim weather conditions to protest the monstrous 7 meter high vertical sea wall.

If you want to show your opposition, simply visit http://lineinthesandcollaroy.org to email Rob Stokes MP and Sign the Petition to save the beach.

There is serious distaste in the lack of community consultation, with alternative solutions available, yet not been chosen, instead now a 7 metre-high, concrete, vertical seawall has been built in front of private properties on Collaroy/Narrabeen beach.

Seawalls of this design have been shown – all over the world, to destroy beaches. Seawalls have the inevitable effect of reflecting and concentrating wave energy and accelerating erosion. Eventually, the beach narrows and disappears.

Beaches naturally use their dunes to replenish sand and recover from erosion events. Dunes are nature's seawalls, they act like the precious lungs of the beach … breathing in and out with the tides. Sand is deposited, washed away. Breathe in. Breathe out. For the vast swathes of Australia’s uninhabited shoreline it’s a dynamic, natural process.

When humans build seawalls on beaches to protect private property and infrastructure, they harden the coast and remove its ability to recover naturally. One thing is absolutely certain according to coastal scientists worldwide: vertical seawalls protect land property in the short-term but, eventually, destroy beaches.

There are other ways of protecting private property that do not risk the loss of our precious beach system.