It has been nearly a year since SPS entered into Environment Court mediation to protect Aramoana and Whareakeake (murderers ) from dumping of dredge deposits by Port Otago Ltd (POL), and with the mutually agreed to adaptive management plan introduced, local surfers are reporting better than ever surfing wave quality.

photo courtesy of Jose Borrero

SPS took issue with the proposed adaptive management techniques put forward by POL, as our science advisor explained, this would be looking for adverse effects after the fact, and then attempt to put them right.

By continuously building mounds of sediment in the swell corridors of these two nationally significant surfbreaks it was feared that we would observe degradation of surfing wave quality.

Swell corridors for Dunedin’s northern surf breaks -graphic courtesy of Jose Borrero

Once POL got their head around what we meant by surfing wave quality, it was like the penny dropped. As they say, only surfers know the feeling. but they are now on to it, and POL understand where we are coming from.

The agreed to adaptive management program now includes extra trigger points, diffuse spreading of sediment at Aramoana, and safe sites at murderer’s, as well as land based camera monitoring systems – see below.

Pol placed two cameras, one at Aramoana and one at Murderers over the course of this last year, and now other peaks have started to fire up at Aramoana. A third camera is currently being installed to accommodate this.

Below is an email received from SPS consultant Dr Shaw Mead, who is the SPS  representative on the POL adaptive management working group for the project:

03 -10 -14

Hi Mike

Please disseminate the following to SPS members:

POL temporary disposal permit.

 Briefly, all is proceeding well with the first year of monitoring and assessment.  Rod Rust reports that after over 2 years of no dumping,  Aramoana is getting back to its best, and there will be no more dumping next year either. 

 The Port’s experts have seen the results and bought into what we initially wanted (i.e. no dumping at Aramoana in order to collect baseline data on wave quality), and are also very keen on getting good data in order to develop a good adaptive management plan (also what we were advocating from day 1). 

 The current thinking is to greatly increase the near shore dumping area so that rather than building a mound it is a diffuse layer over much of the bay.  I am in support of this since;

  a) Sediment would have always bypassed into Aramoana before the channel was put in, and so it needs sediment and;

 b) It would have naturally bypassed diffusely rather than as a mound.  Understanding the  volume that needs to be bypassed is still something that work is continuing on.

 At Heyward’s, the dumping has targeted on rectifying the shape of the mound, after the dumping of a few years ago was extended into the NW of the mound to balance out the large pile that creates the focus for Murderer’s. 

 Murderer’s has also been all time this past 6 months, which along with the erosion that has delivered large volumes of sand into the near shore, may also be a reason that Aramoana has been so good (i.e. we need to be cautious in attributing any changes to one factor, there are many processes going on simultaneously). 

 At Heyward’s, the current thinking is to massively extend the dumping area in order to;

 a) Be able to dispose of rocks in deepwater where they won’t impact on surfing quality, but will  form habitat;

  b) Dump diffusely as to have no impact on surf conditions, and;

  c) Maintain and modify the focus (i.e. the high mound of the dump site) that benefits Murderers. 

 This year’s dumping indicated that they can well target specific areas, which is also another area to consider through predictive modelling for the long-term – i.e. there will always be a need to bypass sand, but what is best for Murderer’s with respect to the focus location and morphology for all wave conditions?  This is an area that also requires future investigations.

 So overall it is proceeding well and the Port is committed to preserving these 2 Nationally Significant Surfing Breaks.

 Kind regards | Ngā mihi

 Dr. Shaw Mead

eCoast Marine Consulting and Research.

both Aramoana and Murderers are improving in surfing wave quality

A big thanks to Nicola Reeves, Rod Rust, South Coast Boardriders, Nukuroa and Heidi Tirikatene – Nash,  the consultation of EDS, Scott Grieve and Shaw Mead for getting us to this point, As always SPS relies on local surfers on the ground passionate about their surfbreaks before we can help.

A big thanks to  POL for listening to Dunedin’s surfers.