Disappearing Port Waikato: locals demand action as erosion threatens
Sunday, 6 October 2019
The sea's eating away at the settlement of Port Waikato and the locals are bristling.
Erosion is the reason the beachside community's hall has just been demolished, and why two homes are cordoned off.
Other houses in the northern Waikato community are at risk, and a crowd of angry residents packed into the local surf club for a Saturday meeting with Waikato District Council.
'This erosion has been going on for how long?' a man in the crowd asked. 'What has council been doing?'
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'It's accelerated,' council's chief operating officer Tony Whittaker said.
'But what's council done? They haven't accelerated anything,' the man replied.
There were numerous interjections in the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, and so many attendees that some listened from the balcony of the Sunset Beach Surf Life Saving Club.
They want action, they told the district council - and from Waikato Regional Council too.
Port Waikato's coast has been retreating about five metres a year since 2012 and, in the past week, that triggered the demolition of the community hall.
Residents want to protect their coast but Whittaker delivered some unpopular information early in the meeting.
'As individuals or as humans, our basic instinct is to protect something that we love or are attached to. But in this case, all the advice that we have been given over the past five years is that protection against erosion at Port Waikato or Sunset Beach is not feasible.'
It's not just passion for the beach, a voice from the back corner said, people have money tied up in assets they're paying mortgages for.
It's tough, coastal scientist Jim Dahm told the audience, and he wouldn't like to be in their shoes.
'You're one of the four or five most difficult erosion problems in New Zealand at the moment.'
No-one knows whether Port Waikato's erosion is a fluctuation or part of a bigger, longer change, so it's best to plan for the worst-case scenario.
And the proposed solution is - universally - as popular as meat pate at a vegan convention, Dahm said.
It's called a managed retreat and, essentially, is moving homes gradually further back on their sections to escape erosion.
The problem comes if there's nowhere left to go, he said, and that's where central government help is needed.
Residents had all sorts of other ideas - from sand bags to sea walls - and some of the reasons they weren't expected to work struck a nerve.
For example, Dahm said getting consent for a sea wall could be difficult and expensive, and other beach users would have different priorities.
Home owners in the area should carry far more weight than a visiting surfer or a family coming for a picnic with boogie boards, a woman in the crowd said.
Another audience member unsuccessfully pushed council to present a dollar figure or percentage it was willing to commit to a Port Waikato project.
The first priority is talking to residents in Ocean View Road, Whittaker said, then working out a plan for the rest of the community.
Before then, the community plans to thrash out its own ideas, an idea suggested by an attendee.
Speaking after the meeting, local Jade McCormack said her petition for urgent council action to protect Port Waikato has already collected almost 1760 signatures.
People are angry, she said, and feel like council hasn't done anything over the past five years.
Inaction is also the biggest concern for fellow resident Grey Russell.
Meetings and talking might help build relationships but won't stop people losing their houses, he said.