Sunday, 7 May 2006

St Clair hazards PLEASE BE CAREFUL



St Clair Steps - exposed concrete and reinforcing rods dangerously close to the bottom of the remaining steps, so PLEASE BE CAREFUL if you are entering the surf via those steps as the high tide covers them.

Heaps of sand has been washed away from around the south end of the St Clair sea wall. Last week the steps were taken out by a strong swell, and now with further erosion. Rest of pics are around at Seconds around 3pm, two guys out.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

foot-kebab anyone? nice one dcc and contractors...

nic on 07 May, 2006 23:41 said...

(found this on the net)

The Soapbox - 19 March 2006

Large rocks at St Clair

I have recently started surfing at St Clair beach. However my experience has been made much less enjoyable due to the difficulty getting in and out of the water, caused by the large rocks which are scattered around the base of the wall, and the bottom of the staircases. At high tide it is dangerous and extremely difficult to get in and out of the water as you have to walk over rocks which are concealed by the water, and can't be seem, and try to not get knocked over on to the rocks by incoming waves which crash up against the seawall, as a friend of mine did recently. I was wondering if the DCC had any plans to attempt to remove the large rocks which are scattered around the base of the seawall and the bottom of the enterance ways at St Clair?

Anonymous

___________________________

Council replies:

The large rocks at the base of the sea wall were deliberately placed there at the direction of the engineers to the project. The large rocks were used in this way to:

1. protect the base of the sea wall itself, and
2. help reduce and disperse the energy of the waves, which would otherwise be simply reflected by the wall if no rocks were present. And without any dissipation to the wave's energy, more sand would be lost from the beach.

Quite simply, this area is often subject to fierce storms, and it is critical that the wall and adjacent properties are adequately protected. There are no plans to remove the rocks. We hope that, in time, more sand will return to the beach and it will be easier to access the surf at the western end of the beach. In the interim, it may be safer entering the water from a little further to the east.

Special Projects Officer
Dunedin City Council

Anonymous said...

We the ratepayers and users of this Dunedin amenity are still waiting for the DCC and the rest of those "experts" to stop passing the buck at their ratepayer paid meetings and fix the access ways! The photo's above say it all and I stood there and watched a lot of movement to the lone concrete pile at the south end yesterday and wondered when that would break up? The south stairs also need urgent waterblasting as the slime/algae build up is dangerous for anyone attempting to use them. What are you guys waiting for? Someone to be impailed???

nic on 08 May, 2006 10:24 said...

I have just got off the phone to the DCC where I left the details of the steel rods and danger to surfers etc. I WAS TOLD THAT THE INFORMATION WILL BE PASSED ON TO THE CONTRACTORS. I gave them the web address for this blog so they can see the pictures, and hopefully they will view the comments you have just made anonymous and address this, and the other issues.

Anonymous said...

Cheers Nic, I'm sure the contractors and collar brigade will be rushing out of their favourite Latte joint to take a look!NOT I think we need to think outside the square with these guys, so what do we all know that they hate the most? PUBLICITY OF THEIR MUCK UPS ALL OVER NZ and further afield!!! May I suggest to all other bloggers and visitors to your wonderful site that everyone send this site on to everyone you know and lets show them what networking really means!

nic on 08 May, 2006 18:33 said...

i popped by to check the steps out at lunch time today, and the tide was too high to see if the rods were still there.. thankfully it was a bit messy for any surf out there today. I'll follow up with a call to the DCC tomorrow to see if the contractors had been contacted, otherwise I feel a call to the papers would be beneficial. Its not long now till that remaining set of stairs goes, I see the bottom two steps are clean (No algae) meaning they were under sand and rock until now. I have been reseacrching the history of the Sea Wall for a speacial page on my phoam.co.nz website .. just need to get some permissions for pics and text etc before 'publishing'.

Anonymous said...

they need to put a solid set of stairs going straight out, like there used to be, never any problems with those!

 

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