The Artificial Reef thing

[black duck]

What to do when crowd numbers at your local get beyond a joke? Most breaks worth surfing are overcrowded. How often do you see a peak that can barely handle 15 surfers with 40+ hassling for the same waves? Crowds so thick you can’t complete your bottom turn for all the guys paddling out through the line-up. Getting burned, we all love that. Waiting 15 minutes for that one lined-up perfect peak and then getting burned – gotta love that even more. There are just not enough waves to go around, especially quality waves. You can’t tell everyone to fcuk off and you can’t make them all surf somewhere else. And it’s getting worse…everywhere…

…“The only thing wrong with it was the amount of people in the water! Crowd count at Winki was in the sixties for most of the morning, it looked more like the super bank. There were similar crowds at every other break in the area too.” – Coastalwatch, quote from Carlo Lowdown from a Victorian feature posted 5/5/09.

Let’s face it, if you’re surfing in an urban area or at a well known point, reef or beach break when the waves are predicted to be good, unless you get real-lucky you’ll be sharing it with more people than there are available waves. Why not create more waves?

Most of us know a spot that doesn’t quite break right but could turn it on with the judicious placement of a few hundred tonne of good size boulders. There are countless spots around where waves don’t quite form up because the drop off is just that bit too deep to generate a decent wall. A reef or point break that doesn’t quite work because it has a fat burger section, rendering it a general dud, something that could be turned around with a few carefully placed bits of heavy reef making stuff. You know those spots. How many of you have mind-surfed one of those potential waves pumping with the right amount of additional material added to help it along?

I’m not talking about messing about with sand pumping or geo-fabric sand bag beach reclamation reefs (the ASR thing), as has been the case for a number of coastal artificial “reef” developments to date. I’m not talking about a Superbank with its huge costs and fundamental problem for surfing – SAND MOVES. I’m also not talking about the more successful artificial reefs generated in relatively still water for fish habitat – the hollow domes that have been increasing fish habitat in bays and estuaries such as Botany Bay and Lake Conjola. I’m just talking about adding to potential reefs or points to improve wave quantity and quality. What’s wrong with putting a shit load of heavy lumpy stuff under the water to make more waves break better. Enhance the potential of what’s already there…

[black duck]

[Beaver]

Well first obviously you have an issue of funding. Why should a council spend ridiculous amounts of money on artificial reef programs so a few surfers can have a more enjoyable time in the water? I'm sure there are many more pressing issues that need to be addressed by council budgets. I know skate ramps etc are built for this purpose but they're much cheaper..

Secondly It's important to recognise that any artificial structure, being 'dropped' into the ocean is going to have an affect on a natural ecosystem. If it does disturb sand flow there can be problems of erosion or a build up of sand in the wrong places.

I think the amount of research into creating a properly formed wave is huge. I dont think its simply a matter of dropping huge rocks off a barge and hoping for the best.

But yes, I've been thinking about the potential for artificial reefs for a long time. It's really exciting and has a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future once technology improves and if future funding arises.

[Nick Carroll]

I think it's a load of crap.

Quite apart from the ideological pitfalls ("Oh, don't ruin our coastline! Unless you ruin it in a way that suits us!"), there've been no successes in this area other than the accidental ones such as the NSW rivermouth groynes and the Superbank -- and they've all been mixed blessings.

The one cast iron fact you can draw from human-designed coastal changes is that every action has an equally disruptive effect. Change the bottom contour and you change a lot of other stuff, a lot of which you didn't even think of at the time.

We don't know much at all first hand about the forces along any of the world's coastlines and their likely effects -- we can only make broad guesses based on the geological record.

Not only that, black duck's point about crowds is farcical: how would a successful artificial reef stop more people from surfing?? The surf population is not static ya know -- people start and stop all the time, and more often than not they keep going. Artificial reefs -- if they worked -- would only encourage crowds, not reduce them. One only needs to look at the Superbank for evidence.

Every day, all along the Australian coastline, millions of good waves break completely unridden; the surfing resource is anything but tapped.

For these reasons and numerous others, if somebody attempted to push forward an artificial reef structure in my local area, I'd fight it tooth and fcuken nail.

[Beaver]

The building of all artificial structures, like groynes, sea walls, boulder aprons, breakwaters, artificial reefs etc. that adjust sand-flow is highly contested issue.

Essentially Local governments have a duty to allow the coastline to fluctuate in a natural way. On the other hand they have a duty to protect already existing infrastructure on the coast at risk from erosion, be it public or private.

The problem is that by implementing these structure there is a loss of sand flow "downstream" is you can say that, and a loss of beach amenity somewhere else.

Basically people should never have been allowed to build so close to the beach, or so close to cliff faces etc. But what is the solution? you cant ask these people or developments to move, and on the same hand you cant sit by and do nothing while a house falls into the sea.

[Nick Carroll]

you cant sit by and do nothing while a house falls into the sea.

Sure you can. Why not? It's happened numerous times in human history. Houses have fallen into the sea all over the goddamn shop. They've also been rolled by earthquakes, blown to bits by hurricanes and tornados, swept away by floods, and obliterated by developers.

There's a limit to the effort any collective organisation (ie local councils) should make on behalf of any individual landowner whose property is in the path of long term natural coastal change.

As for local councils investing in artificial reefs ...it'd be a sure sign they had too much money for their own good.

[puurri]

AS far as I know none of the NSB LGAs hold insurance for it happening, particularly Warringah with the development of the Narra spit in the 60s and 70s. And they are worried abt it happening!
Manly had a geotech report commissioned abt 05, not good news!

[Beaver]

Ok.. How about public infrastructure? Do you think that a local council is going to sit by and do nothing while a surf club, or a beach car park, or a toilet block etc. has the ground from underneath it washed away?

This presents not only a financial loss for council, but it also presents a public safety hazard. If they don't do anything about it they'll probably be deemed negligent and be sued.

Personally I agree, if a building is at threat from erosion it shouldn't be there and it should go. Logistically i cant see it happening.

[oldman]

Basically people should never have been allowed to build so close to the beach, or so close to cliff faces etc. But what is the solution? you cant ask these people or developments to move, and on the same hand you cant sit by and do nothing while a house falls into the sea.

Too true, but unfortunately a lot of mistakes have been made, and sometimes decisions were made in favour of developers by councils, the councils later being found corrupt. I think councils can and should move these people on, reclaiming the land within a reasonable time frame and gazetting the lands as 'never to be sold again'.

There's a limit to the effort any collective organisation (ie local councils) should make on behalf of any individual landowner whose property is in the path of long term natural coastal change.

The real problems come when the council (or other levels of government) have directly affected the rate and impact of erosion by their decisions on guttering and drainage, refusing people the right to protect their strip of land by erecting any structures, mining and other operations.

The cheapest long term solution is for these houses to be bought out and given back to councils as public land. Councils don't have the money so the Feds would have to chip in. Leaving things to go to crap is just going to leave lawyers winning, and nobody wants that!

Whatever you think of artificial reefs, the logistics of getting approvals through the local community and all other government bodies is sufficient to stop anything from ever happening.

[steve shearer]

Coupla of brief points:

Coastal landowners are in general cashed up and highly motivated : they have the wherewithal to challenge in court any "planned retreat policy" that councils may have had in place. This is happening now on the Belongil Spit at Byron,,,,test cases like this will determine council's mettle in letting houses fall into the sea when the one in 50 year storm happens.

Considering the Gold Coast, which is the canary in the coalmine: every inch of that coastline is modified by engineered structures and as far as coastal protection goes it is considered by engineers on council to be a spectacular success.
With hard structures making good sense for coastal protection from councils POV it won't be a big jump for those coastal councils to include surfing as part of the intended uses. Especially as pressure from user groups grows on increasingly populated areas like the Goldy.

Recreational surfing alone is now worth more than 500 million a year to the gold coast economy....that doesn't include the quik pro or the value of the surf industry.....users are going to increasingly demand "facilities" for them to use as amenity decreases along the southern points.

Ameliorating overcrowding?.......obviously not as a one-off structure.....but a series of small hard structures, creating a series of surf spots would do a MASSIVE amount to break up concentrated crowd numbers along the Gold Coast.

Whats remarkable about the Goldy , considering the tampering is just how well the whole thing works. The mechanics of the sand flow are fairly well understood. It's not rocket science and anyone who resists on environmental and spiritual grounds is kind of living in a fairyland.

[Shane Peel]

Imagine for a moment that a company can actually build an AR that produces good waves and that local councils were cool with it how fast will the surf industry get behind it … it would be the aquatic version of a skatepark. Hurley builds a reef and donates it to the local surf community at spot x it's a roaring success so Billabong have to build a better one, then Quik gets a sniff and has to top em both and builds an even better one … with lights and finally Ripcurl has the super crack and knocks up one in each state. Crowds ease, surfers benefit and houses stop falling into the sea. Is there an actual AR that throws up good surf yet? Saw the one in NZ and it looked pretty lame.

[Beaver]

Coupla of brief points:

Whats remarkable about the Goldy , considering the tampering is just how well the whole thing works. The mechanics of the sand flow are fairly well understood. It's not rocket science and anyone who resists on environmental and spiritual grounds is kind of living in a fairyland.

The Kirra sand pumping is a monumental failure..

It has the potential to be a successful project but extremely poor and inaccurate modeling and forecasting has rendered it a failure.

Not only has the sand pumping destroyed one of the worlds best surf breaks.
It has drowned Kirra reef, destroying the habitat of many organisms. It was a popular diving spot, local dive businesses can no longer use, hence suffer financially. The beach looks like a desert now. Less people on the beach means local buissnesses suffer. These are all breaches of the plans original contract.

The whole point of the project was to have sand move up the coast to assist erosion problems on the goldie. However, long shore drift forecasts were based on a much higher level of Storm activity. Since the project has been running the Qld coast hasnt experienced the sorts of regular storm activity needed to get this sand moving up the coast.

The pumping needs to either be reduced or stopped for a period. But due to the 25 year contract, on which people jobs rest, the pumping is completely inflexible.

If your interested check out this Triple J special on hack.

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/notes/s1701238.htm

[steve shearer]

Hey Beave, I'm working on this with Neil Lazarow from Griffith Uni.....I'm well aware of the tragedy of Kirra.

But from a coastal protection POV, the TRESBP is considered a spectacular success and if you asked guys during the heyday of the Superbank what they thought of it, well you'd get a range of responses.

Development in the Kirra precinct seems to be progressing at a normal Gold Coast rate...and everybody has their own opinion on that...point being, the loss of Kirra will be judged by history as a temporary blip and a more sensible pumping/management regime is just a matter of appropriate political will.

Pehaps the biggest impediment to sand flowing north has been the continual dumping of dredged sand from the tweed river mouth in a grid in Coolangatta Bay...this had made the bay more shallow and stopped the full force of storm swells from refracting into Kirra with the necessary erosive force.

There has been changes this season....the big groyne section has come back, although the alignment of sand is still too square after that.

We'll see what this next storm event does.

This hasn't got much to do with artificial reefs though.........just the fact that there is no natural legislative impediment, in QLD at least, to them being built.

EDIT:
By the way.....there's a controversial point of view that Kirra itself, at least as we knew it, was a man-made or man-enhanced wave.

[Beaver]

Hey Beave, I'm working on this with Neil Lazarow from Griffith Uni.....I'm well aware of the tragedy of Kirra.

Awesome.. What sort of work are you doing? If you don't mind me asking..

And how do you feel personally about the project?

I understand the wave was a originally a result of the groyne built at kirra.
When they refer to the kirra reef, popular for diving, was this a natural reef?

I'm thinking of looking at the Kirra situation for a project at uni. Or at looking at some sort of coastal erosion/degradation for my final project..

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[Trev]

I understand the wave was a originally a result of the groyne built at kirra.
When they refer to the kirra reef, popular for diving, was this a natural reef?
.

"The" wave was there before any groynes.
The reef is natural.
I have a pic somewhere of it breaking, taken with a very long lens. I'll try to find it and post it here.

The gap from the foam to the breaking wave is about 300-400metres.
The foam in the foreground is the normal Kirra point wave. The head you can see which looks like a surfer about to die is actually only about halfway out. 500mm lens.

[Animal_Chin]

Yeah i remember when Cables was being built. The state government put up the $1.5million to build it and it was dogged by controversy by both surfers and environmentalists. The surfers wanted it further north to catch better swells and the greenies just didn't want it.

I think now it would be classed as a semi-success. It needs a fair swell to work but does take some surfers off other breaks. I don't know of any negative environmental outcomes either.

So yeah I think artificial reefs are viable, as long as the research is sound and open to scrutiny.

Some pics of Cables:

[Damage]

It might be 25 yrs from now but i think the future of artificial waves will be confined to 'wave parks' etc.

Press a button and take your pick:

1. 4 foot Cloudbreak
2. 3 foot Dunny Bowl
3. 4.5 foot Restaurants

What'll it be?