Posted on March 1, 2018
By Tegan Annett, The Observer
THE same company dredging the Boyne River has explored what options are available to fix the dangerously shallow Round Hill Creek at Seventeen Seventy.
East Coast Maritime operations manager Lindsay Toy said the company had looked into and estimated details of fixing the creek twice, once for a tourism operator and again for the Gladstone Regional Council.
Mr Toy said the problem could be fixed with bed levelling, which is different to the backhoe and barge dredging operation under way at the mouth of the Boyne River.
“With bed levelling you push the material in the higher spots into the lower spots – put simply it’s similar to what a road grader would do, but underwater,” he said.
The Gladstone Regional Council spent $10,000 on a feasibility study into sand pushing at the creek mouth, following mounting safety concerns about access in and out of the creek.
The shallow creek has been identified as a safety issue by Volunteer Marine Rescue Round Hill.
There are also fears for the fragile tourism economy on the Discovery Coast which relies on the creek.
Mr Troy said bed levelling was generally done in conjunction with dredging, or a few years after a dredge if the sand builds up again.
Source: The Observer
