I understand from the local paper that suggestions are wanted for flood mitigation around the area.
I have had considreable experience with water management in the River Murray Basin and I have learned over the years that, when you try to harness nature, you have to work with, not against it.
I am concerned that in times of heavy rain, West Tweed, Tweed Heads, Terranora Lakes, Cobaki Lakes and West Banora Point will be flooded because the rivers are blocked with sand. Where the Terranora River enters the Tweed it is blocked and the Tweed is showing signs of sand, from Jack Evans Boat Harbour to Fingal. The mouth of the Tweed is quite dangerous.
With the Tweed River blocked the way it is, it doesn’t fill and drain properly. It should be keeping the water fresh for fish and oysters, preventing the sugarcane standing too long in water and draining the sewerage farm on the out tide. The sand in the river is also causing boats to travel along the east bank and creating a destructive wash.
The commercial sand pump, put in at great cost to supply sand to the Queensland surf beaches, has aggravated the situation. It has drained all the sand from Kingscliff and fifty metres of sand from the beaches from Fingal, right along the Tweed outlet. Sometimes when the pumps are going, pumping sand along Duranbah Beach with a north wind blowing, the sand drifts off the beach across the outlet of the Tweed, into the Tweed, with the rest going back to the pumps.
I suggest Council or some other authority buy a barge with a pump and equipment to shift sand from where it is not wanted and put it where it is wanted at half the coast.
I suggest that, where the Terranora and Tweed Rivers currently join, a cutting should be made in a north, north-easterly direction through Fingal to the existing mouth. This would let out a lot more water during a flood. The cutting should also be big and deep enough to prevent it silting up and for large boats to enter the rivers.
Pumping the sand out of the river over Fingal and putting the beach back at Kingscliff, from where the present sand pumps have taken it, will put the sand back where it should be. The Tweed River will then be returned to the water sports, rowing, speed boating, water ski-ing, sailing – from Kerosene Bay to Boyds Bay Bridge in the great way it used to be.
If council had a barge and pump, they could also pump sand from in front of Banora Point overland to Kingscliff. These projects would cost quite a lot but if we have a big flood, it is still going to cost a lot and no efforts will have been made to stop it happening again.
Les Heywood
