Following the recent severe weather event, the GCWA team is busy out on the Gold Coast waterways recovering lost buoys, repairing damaged beacons and other navigation aids, and monitoring sunken vessels for pollution at multiple locations.

While the focus remains on the Nerang and Coomera Rivers, GCWA keeps assessing and responding to damage across the primary channel network.

Despite the heavy rain easing and sunny skies returning, boaties and all waterways users are encouraged to stay away from the waterways because of the risk presented by floating debris, submerged hazards and strong current flows for many days following the torrential rains.

Please stay safe and keep up-to-date with advice from Bureau of Meteorology, the City of Gold Coast and Maritime Safety Queensland. Follow us on Facebook for more information from GCWA.

The Gold Coast Waterways Authority and City of Gold Coast are partnering to plan and develop new technologies, infrastructure and environmental management practices under a new agreement aimed at tackling climate change.

As a first step under the partnership, GCWA and the City are commissioning a project to prepare a business case for managing coastal hazards, including rising sea levels and extreme weather events, in order to protect vital infrastructure including the Gold Coast Seaway, the Sand Bypass system and Wave Break Island.

The project will look at the social, environmental and economic impacts of climate change and consider a range of options for responding including developing new technology for monitoring changes, building new infrastructure or altering environmental management practices.

With a natural capital value of $26 billion and over 6,000 direct and indirect jobs relying on our waterways, the city depends on features like the Gold Coast Seaway, the Sand Bypass System and Wave Break Island to ensure ongoing and safe access to our waterways for recreational boaties and commercial operators.

They also protect public open spaces including Doug Jennings Park at The Spit and foreshores along the Broadwater from hazards like storm surges and erosion.

This project will consider how these assets are holding up against climate change impacts and what future infrastructure is needed  to respond to the changing environment.

A tender to undertake the project has been awarded to a group comprising south-east Queensland firms NCEconomics and Alluvium Consulting.

The partnership will build on the work being done under the City’s Coastal Hazard Adaptation Strategy (CHAS).

The Gold Coast has a strong track record in leading the way with developing innovative responses to environmental challenges.

The Gold Coast Seaway and world-first Sand Bypass System were developed and constructed in direct response to the need for more robust coastal protection systems. The infrastructure still stands as one of Australia’s most significant engineering feats of the 1980s and was only possible because of direct support from the Queensland Government.

The project will set a clear direction for the management and protection of the coastal inland waterways using science and evidence-based research.

Here’s a trivia question for you.

What’s valued at over $11 million and helps keep Gold Coast navigation channels safer and accessible for boaties?

If your answer was the Aids to Navigation (AtoN) dotted around the waterways network, you are right!

On the Gold Coast there are more than 2,000 beacons, buoys and marine signs managed and maintained by us, more than any other maritime region in Queensland.

As a waterways city with an extensive network of channels people use to travel from A to B like a road network, we need a good system of signs and markers to help everyone navigate their way around safely.

When you consider our waterways contribute $700 million directly and indirectly to our local economy every year and support vital tourism, marine and recreation businesses, the money spent on our Aids to Navigation program is a sound investment.

GCWA has set aside a total of $200,000 over the next four years under our Gold Coast Waterways Management Program to keep our navaids ship-shape.

Whilst the asset’s overall value may seem surprising, each smaller beacon like the one pictured (of which there are hundreds) costs about $500 each. The major pile beacons found in areas like the Main Channel can cost up to $250,000 each to manufacture and establish.

GCWA procures the beacons and buoys from an Australian manufacturer based in Victoria whilst the rest of the materials used are sourced locally where possible.

GCWA’s Waterways team undertakes most of the construction, repairs and maintenance but it does use local contractors for some of the bigger repair jobs such as on the major pile beacons. This is because major welding and platform repairs can’t be done in-house.

Damage to our navaids can be caused by a range of factors including bird-droppings, wild weather or, most frustratingly, vessel collisions. From time-to-time, birds choose to use the markers as roosting spots. When that happens, the Team calls in specialists to ensure proper relocation of the wildlife.

GCWA’s Waterways team clocks up thousands of nautical miles each year checking and maintaining the navaids throughout the city’s 170 kilometres of navigable channels which they know like the backs of their hands.

Some of the more interesting spots where you’ll find Aids to Navigation are the leading lights on the top of Bayview Tower at Runaway Bay, the starboard entrance beacon at the northern wall of the Gold Coast Seaway which is sometimes accessed by helicopter and the southern sector of Moreton Bay Marine Park.

Typically, GCWA’s rolling maintenance schedule aims to ensure each sign is checked every two years and all navigation beacons are checked every 12 months. Emergency repairs are done in response to reports of damage.

If you are out and about on the water and see an Aid to Navigation that needs fixing please give the Waterways team a call on 5539 7350 or send an email to mail@ydsgroup2.com.au  or find out more here

We’re honoured to be part of a team which has won a Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) 2020 National Award for Planning Excellence for our work on The Spit Master Plan https://www.planning.org.au/awards/awards-for-planning-excellence-2

We’re sharing the Award for Public Engagement and Community Planning for The Spit Master Plan with our colleagues in the Department of State Development, Innovation and Tourism, City of Gold Coast, Articulous, John Gaskell Planning Consultants, Deicke Richards and ASPECT studios.

The judging panel noted the strong engagement and collaboration which featured throughout the development of The Spit Master Plan.

This is the second time the consultation undertaken for The Spit Master Plan has been recognised, with the team picking up an award from the Queensland chapter of the PIA in 2019.

We wouldn’t have achieved this without the ongoing support and engagement from the community members who are committed to working with us to bring the Spit Master Plan to life!

If you’ve been to the Spit lately you may have seen work progressing on the two projects we’re delivering as part of The Spit Master Plan implementation – the Seaway Promenade and the Moondarewa Spit Foreshore Improvements. We’re looking forward to finishing these in time for the Christmas holidays and opening them up for locals and visitors to enjoy.