Battle of the Adelaide beach sand
An independent upper house candidate has stepped into the fray as beach sand carting emerges as a coastal battle ground in the state election.
Independent candidate for the state’s Upper House and founder of Community Development Advocacy SA Craig Pickering has called on the state government to “explain a glaring inconsistency” with its coastal management policy which he said, “wastes nearly $1 million in taxpayer funds annually”.
His comments come after both the Liberal candidate Bec Sutton and Labor candidate Aria Bolkus revealed their plans for the fraught West Beach sand replenishment issue in the Lower House seat of Colton.
“I’ve scoured the reports by the Department of Environment and Water (DEW), and the department’s own reports clearly state that piping sand is more expensive, environmentally damaging and visually repellent to the community than dredging,” Pickering told InDaily.
“Based on recent volumes of 80,000m³, this outdated pipeline costs taxpayers approximately $960,000 per year more than the dredging alternative recommended by the government’s own review.”
The DEW Adelaide Beach Management Review Implementation (AMBRI) Summary Report from January confirmed that dredging was the preferred option over the sand pumping pipeline.
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However, a sand pumping pipeline operation is set to commence at Glenelg in April.
Pickering said he had consulted with local resident representatives and that it was a “no-brainer” to change the sand pumping operations to sand dredging in Glenelg.
“Dredging works on other beaches, so why aren’t they doing it in Glenelg? It just doesn’t make any logical sense,” he said.
“It benefits the community, benefits the government as far as saving money, yet the pumping is still going ahead in April.
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“We had a homelessness charity close a couple of weeks ago because of lack of government funding, and here they are spending nearly $1 million on something they can change quite easily from piping to dredging.”
Pickering said that local communities are “not being heard” from the state government, calling for a halt on the scheduled April 2026 pipeline operations at Glenelg and to instead apply the ABMR findings to the Glenelg coastline.
In January, Aria Bolkus stood alongside Environment Minister Lucy Hood and Deputy Premier Kyam Maher as they promised a new sand replenishment program that would restore West Beach with 400,000 cubic metres of sand collected from the Outer Harbour channel breakwater.
The former Liberal government had already approved a pipeline to tackle the local issue but the project was shelved for new community consultation when the Labor Party was elected.
“We are taking trucks off our beaches in a long-term solution for the community, because we know how much locals love their coastline,” Hood said.
The state government committed to establishing an annual replenishment program of 90,000 cubic metres of sand collected from sites where sand builds up – like Semaphore and Largs Bay –and would cost $190 million over 20 years.
This type of dredging was a recommendation of the 2023 Adelaide Beach Management Review and was proven by a dredging trial, the state government said.
A one-off mass restoration is also planned at West Beach for 2027, which would see 400,000 cubic metres of sand from the Outer Harbour channel breakwater delivered over two years.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Party has proposed a sand pipeline between Largs Bay and West Beach which would end the need for ongoing sand dredging.
The pipeline would cost $140 million over 20 years and would pump sand from areas with excess sand to areas in need.
