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The South Australian Government recently launched a comprehensive independent review of long-term sand management options for the Adelaide beaches.
The review’s Independent Advisory Panel – working since last December on the best alternatives – has now shortlisted three primary options.
The first one is Dredging – This would involve sand being collected from the seabed using a dredging vessel and being pumped to West Beach or other beaches in need of sand.
This could include taking sand from deposits offshore of Largs Bay, Outer Harbor, Port Stanvac and/or regional sources. This option may need to be complemented with quarry sand from time to time.
Dredging would cost $45 million to $60 million over 20 years if using metropolitan sand sources, but the cost could rise if sand was sourced from regional areas.
2nd option is Pipeline – This would involve building an underground pipeline to transfer sand and seawater from beaches where sand is building up to beaches in need of sand replenishment.
This option would use a combination of quarry sand initially delivered to West Beach using trucks, and sand collected from areas between Semaphore Park and Largs Bay, either from on the beach or near the shoreline.
The bulk of the pipeline sand would be discharged at West Beach, but there would be additional discharge points to allow sand to be delivered to other beaches.
A pipeline option would cost $140 million to $155 million. This includes construction of the pipeline, buying additional quarry sand and operating the pipeline for 20 years.
The third one is to Maintain current arrangement – Sand would be collected from beaches at Semaphore and Largs Bay using an excavator and front-end loader and trucked to areas where sand is required. External quarry sand would also be delivered using trucks on public roads.
This option would cost $100 million to $110 million over the next 20 years.
The deadline for sending comments on the proposed works is Sunday, 15 October.