The ocean has started to break through a second point on Bribie Island as a cyclone looms off the Queensland coastline.
A video by Pumicestone Passage Catchment Management Board (PPCMB) spokesperson Jen Kettleton-Butler shows water pushing into dead vegetation on the surf side of the island about 8am Thursday morning.
Ms Kettleton-Butler estimated the water to be 1m deep on the high tide and questioned the island’s ability to protect Golden Beach and Caloundra with Cyclone Alfred moving down the Queensland coastline.
She said Golden Beach was at “catastrophic risk” of erosion and storm surge in the next major weather event, and she feared people in tinnies would be “rescuing little old ladies from their houses”.
“I think Golden Beach is at imminent risk from a storm tide surge that could happen in the right set of circumstances, whether it be a cyclone or an east coast low, that presents high winds, high waves and high rainfall,” she said.
Ms Kettleton-Butler had been monitoring the island fortnightly for the past six weeks and ramped up efforts to draw attention to the issue after seeing it on Sunday.
She took a party, including Member for Caloundra Kendall Morton, to the island yesterday morning to show them a fragile 15m wide section.
She had she hoped the trip would demonstrate the need for urgent temporary reinforcement of the island.
“We’re too late now, it’s gone, there’s nothing we can do,” she said.
“I didn’t think this would happen now. I thought it would happen when the cyclone came down. I thought we had four or five days.
“But we’ve had two weeks of high winds which have whipped up big surf. We normally get 1-1.5m here and the swell marker has been getting hit by around 2-2.5m.”
The new breakthrough point is south of the where the ocean, whipped up by ex-tropical cyclone Seth, broke through in late 2021, and just south of the Lions Park on Bribie Island.
Ms Kettleton-Butler said PCCMB board members believed urgent action could still be taken to shore up the island.
She said the group advocated for temporary reinforcement, such as sand-filled geo-textile bags covered with pumped sand, until permanent protection was put in place, but even building that would now be difficult.
A fourth-generation Caloundra resident, she said locals had been calling for a permanent coastal protection system for the area for more than 50 years.
The Department of Environment has taken the position that the coastline is dynamic and that there should not be intervention in the island, which is part of a marine park that has Ramsar recognition for its environmental value.
But Ms Kettleton-Butler said sand could not naturally replenish the island when the shipping channel to the east was repeatedly dredged and the sand sent elsewhere.
“What we’re trying to protect has broken because we’re trying to protect it,” she said.
The Department of Environment has also deflected erosion issues at Golden Beach to the Sunshine Coast Council, which has shored up some areas.
Councillor Terry Landsberg, whose division includes Caloundra and Golden Beach, said he was “very concerned at the changing conditions” in the area.
“We don’t know what the facts would be if a large (weather) system were to come down off-shore,” he said.
Cr Landsberg said all levels of government needed to work together to address issues in the Passage.
Sunshine Coast News has contacted the Department of Environment and Ms Morton’s office for comment.
As Cyclone Alfred continues to track south, the Sunshine Coast Council has stated it is actively monitoring the situation and preparing for potential inundation in areas typically affected by abnormal high tides and large swells, such as Currimundi Lake, Golden Beach (Bribie Island) and the Pumicestone Passage.
The Sunshine Coast Council’s Disaster and Emergency coordinator Jason Membrey said water levels on the high tide could exceed the highest tide of the year by about 50cm on Saturday morning which could lead to minor foreshore flooding and coastal erosion.
