By TANIA PHILLIPS
SURF Club volunteers and Tweed Shire Council workers were on high alert this week, after high tides brought erosion to within 17 metres of the iconic Fingal Rovers Surf Lifesaving Clubhouse.
Tweed Mayor Barry Longland, who was at the Fingal club on Tuesday morning to check the situation, said almost eight metres of sand had been lost from in front of the clubhouse in recent weeks.
He said the larger than normal seas and high tides of just over two metres were bringing erosion and also hampering clean-up operations.
However with the tides expected to drop away as the week went on, he was hopeful council workers would get on to the beach before the weekend and clear up the debris.
“We want to get the heavy machinery on the beach and that is likely to happen late today or tomorrow,” he said on Tuesday.
“We have a sand source available and we will be looking to bring sand in.
“I have also had some contact from State member for Tweed Geoff Provest and he has organised a meeting with the Minister for Environment and Heritage Robyn Parker for emergency funding. The State Government is aware of this crisis and to their credit are willing to help.”
He said an access point was likely to be created through the caravan park next to the clubhouse. Mr Longland said he had checked down at Kingscliff, which had been the scene of major erosion over the past few years, but he said Fingal now seemed to be the focus.
Fingal Rovers president Robyn Wonson said they had not yet removed any gear from the club but were not using the building, which is in the middle of a major renovation.
“We have taken the precaution of mentoring the movement with the Tweed Council and at this stage we have just stopped access to the building until we can review if there has been any structural damage with the erosion, this is a safety precaution at this stage,” she said.
“We have had to postpone our annual dinner because we can’t use the building and we will need to put this special function on for our members at a later date when we can access the building again or at another venue.
“We have only completed stage one of the clubhouse renovations and need extra funding to complete the western side of the clubhouse, which holds our essential services such as the kiosk, toilets and also our members showers. When we did the renovation we designed the internals of the building to ensure that these essential things to a public building were back from the erosion line, to cause minimal loss if something did go terrible wrong with the erosion.
“The club will be working with our engineer to evaluate if there has been any structural change to the building due to the current erosion situation.”
Robyn said Fingal Rovers, which is celebrating it’s 80th year in September, was staffed entirely by volunteers and in the past five years had conducted 137 rescues, 3,630 preventative measures and 343 first aid treatments.
She said the club was a vital part of the local community.
