Dear News Of The Area,

IF you don’t like the ongoing band-aid jobs at the Boulevarde, WindaWoppa, don’t blame the contractors or workers for what you see. They do what their superiors tell them.

Sadly none of the decision makers are local.

Most of them are high up the ladder of our Council, whichever name it goes by.

And sadly they appear to be unable to deliver the goods.

Over the last few weeks it was time to put more sand on the Boulevard “in preparation for storm season”.

A bit late I would have thought.

For had the destructive swell early in June come from the SE instead of the NE, the road would again be no more.

Late work or early, the mountain of sand created last year near the river mouth for the purpose of renourishment works was apparently inaccessible. Well done.

So the solution….source the sand from the Boulevard itself.

Hence everything has been dug up and flattened AGAIN.The beach has been completely rearranged and the newly forming fore dune and seedlings which create stability gone.

I have written before voicing my main concern regarding the Boulevarde’s erosion. That is the burial of seagrass beds. It’s like killing mangroves- you aren’t allowed to do it.

I do have another concern. During the latest reconstruction, the hay bales worth thousands of dollars that were laid down last year were pulverised within the new substrate that became the beach.

Within days was erosion. This erosion is just in its infancy, yet already some of the trashed hay bale component has washed towards Barnes Rocks.

Scattered with it are ‘Cats Heads’ prickles. They are the seeds of the weed botanic name Tribulusterrestris.

If you have never encountered those prickles, go for a walk down there now.

Take thick shoes.  It is a sad day when someone with feet as leathery as mine cannot walk barefoot on a beach.

Waves and high tides will wash the cats heads further up in to the adjacent foredunes and they will grow and spread along the penninsula.

Meanwhile back at the unstable Boulevard what is being laid next to the road? You guessed it, brand new hay bales. I hope they have been screened for Cats Heads.

 

Christian Patteson, Hawks Nest