EMERGENCY work to prevent further coastal erosion at the northern NSW town of Kingscliff has been stalled by red tape, with council staff warning many more seaside communities will face the same problem unless the complex coastal protection laws are streamlined.
Kingscliff has lost an estimated 40 metres of beach to the sea in less than two months, leaving the surf club and cabins at a caravan park dangling at the edge of the water.
But protection works must stop by Friday because NSW legislation requires the council to go through a public tender process to procure more sandbags.
The council-owned Kingscliff Beach Holiday Park has already spent $800,000 on temporary protection works, and is building a four metre-high sandbag wall along the most damaged sections of beach. Phase two, for which they have environmental approval, requires larger, more durable sandbags but the council must cease work for at least a week for the procurement process.
Richard Adams, who runs the park for Tweed Shire, said the situation was ''frustrating''.
''In an emergency event like this, where clearly there is an extenuating circumstance, it would be great if we could go to the government and say let's look at some way to relieve us from some of the more protracted planning consent and procurement issues,'' he said.
The government has agreed to pay for a $75,000 study to investigate sand nourishment at Kingscliff.
The co-ordinator of natural resources management at Tweed Shire, Jane Lofthouse, warned that more towns will face similar problems.
''This is a real wake-up call for all coastal communities, that this is the sort of impacts they're facing [from climate change],'' Ms Lofthouse, who is also a member of the NSW Coastal Panel which advises the environment minister on coastal erosion, said. ''It doesn't even have to be a big storm event, and it's not all about sea level rise.
''All you need is a bit of an elevation in the tidal levels and a bit of a change in the swell direction. That then changes the alignment of beaches, so areas that have previously been stable can become unstable.''
A big storm in 2009 weakened the Kingscliff foreshore, but it was a combination of the La Nina weather pattern, higher-than-predicted tides and easterly swells in July that suddenly chewed up several metres of beach and dune in days. Overnight the land in front of holiday park cabins disappeared, and the council had to urgently shift the buildings 20 metres back by crane. Now there is only a few metres of turf left between them and the sea.
The council's long-term strategy to save Kingscliff is a $6 million plan to pump 300,000 cubic metres of sand through a pipeline from the Tweed River to rebuild the dunes, but sufficient funding has not been secured.
Kingscliff business owners are worried, with the erosion already affecting tourist numbers.
''It's very disappointing that the state government has taken such a hands-off approach,'' said Chris Paine, the owner of Galileo's Pizza Cafe opposite the beach.
''The problem's far greater than council's resources can possibly muster … the state government's committed the impressive sum of $75,000 to conduct a study, due back in 18 months' time. This won't last 18 months - this won't last 18 weeks. What's to become of Kingscliff if there's no beach?''
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