Southern Peninsula
Features inside HEALTHY LIVING PAGE 31 FOOD AND ENTERTAINMENT PAGES 34–37 SOUTHERN PENINSULA SCOREBOARD PAGES 40–42
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8 August – 21 August 2013
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Tall ships head Down Under Dutch tall ship Tecla is among eight vessels coming to Port Phillip for the Melbourne International Tall Ship Festival next month where they will join Melbourne-based Enterprize before heading off to other Australian cities and New Zealand. Mornington Peninsula residents will have front row seats at places like Point Nepean National Park, Sorrento, Capel Sound, Rosebud pier and Arthurs Seat to see the vessels arrive and depart. Full story Page 15. Picture: Tall Ships Victoria
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It comes after two reports commissioned by the government and released in July linked the loss of the beach and foreshore to deepening of Port Phillip Heads and South Channel in 2008 during the two-year channel deepening project. The reports – one by environmental consultant Water Technologies of Notting Hill and a CSIRO review of all report before and after dredging – re-
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ment, or seawall, to protect the bags, some of which are falling apart. The work will cost about $120,000. A similar row of rocks was placed on the beach as temporary protection to allow contractors to build the 1000-sandbag seawall in August 2010. The rocks solution is the latest attempt by the government to save Portsea’s once-popular front beach from further erosion.
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By Mike Hast THE state government is drawing up plans to place huge black rocks in front of the sandbag wall at Portsea’s front beach. Contractors working for the Department of Environment and Primary Industries are expected to start work in coming weeks to position rocks at the base of the 150-metre sandbag revet-
vealed what the government and Port of Melbourne Corporation had denied for almost four years: that beach loss was caused by dredging. The authorities had repeatedly said the beach was destroyed by natural causes such as storms, higher sea levels and natural erosion. Water Technologies’ report stated channel deepening had created channels that allowed larger and more pow-
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erful waves to sweep into the beach. The CSIRO report stated a change in the local wave conditions was the likely cause of the erosion at Portsea but this could not be measured accurately due to a lack of “long wave records at Portsea beach that predate the erosion event and CDP [channel deepening project]”.
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