Our beaches have never been so fragile and under so much attack!

20 Sep, 2021

KEN RAYWARD

If you thought that the sand mining company McCallums was listening to the Mangawhai to Pakiri community opposition to the mining consent application from their partner, Kaipara Limited, then sadly, you and everyone else will be disappointed with this recent news.

McCallums have formally lodged two resource consent applications for continued sand mining along the Mangawhai to Pakiri coastline, and the volume of sand they wish to take is beyond all expectations.

If the two McCallum applications and Kaipara Limited’s one were granted, it would total a staggering 9,910,000 cubic metres – three times the two current consents – and if they were to commence next year, they will be operating until the year 2057, 35 years of further beach environmental abuse.

The three applications would run parallel to each other along the coastline starting at a five metre depth, then 15 metre and then 30 metres.

To paint a picture, this is like placing 330,000 20-foot containers along the Mangawhai to Pakiri beach front, filling them with sand and removing them!

Anyone who has seen the current state of our beaches will know how fragile our coastline is to even very moderate storm damage, Te Arai now has a three to five metre drop to the new beach level.

Sadly, due to overmining that has been allowed, the sand we relied upon to rebuild our storm damaged beaches is gone.

If even one of the three consents were to be approved, our beaches, having already been stripped of their ability to be revitalised, will be further ravaged.

It is beyond belief that a company currently operating in a very sensitive environmental sector could even consider making an application to remove our beach’s most valuable resource, not just in huge volumes, but for a period of 35 years.

Global warming impact concerns alone over this period should render these applications to be unsuccessful.

I wondered if in 35 years that my now 11-year-old granddaughter would take up the fight to protect our beaches against more sand mining, although sadly, there will be nothing left worth fighting for – our beaches will have become apartment blocks in Auckland.

Currently the Covid situation in Auckland has paused the commissioners’ directed bathymetric study of the proposed sea bed, which lies beneath the far shore (30 metres)

consent application from Kaipara Limited. One can only guess how long this will now take.

The two new consent applications from McCallum Brothers will be heard together, and whilst McCallums fought hard to keep their near shore application being non-notifiable, Auckland Council recognised this would not be in the interests of the impacted communities and required it to be notified to the public.

Further advice on this in terms of hearing dates will be announced when Auckland gets to a Covid level 2.

It is hoped that McCallum brothers hold the required border crossing and coastal operating consents as they have continued to take sand through this lockdown without any evidence of granted exemptions.

Their largest mining vessel, the William Fraser, has been regularly satellite tracked in this locked down period, and found operating too close to shore and again, trespassing into Northern regional waters, well north of their Auckland area consent.

Let’s hope that Auckland Council and the police will view marine violations with their same intolerance to land based consent and law violations.
 

Te Arai sand cliffs, a three to five metre drop to the new beach level; ‘The current state of local beaches shows how fragile the coastline is to even very moderate storm damage, with the sand we relied upon to rebuild now gone... allegedly due to over-mining’. IMAGE/SUPPLIED