If the flawed Semaphore to West Beach Sand Recycling Pipeline proposal goes ahead beaches will be degraded and fragile dunes will be lost. Our beaches will become a quarry full of excavators and trucks, damaging the fragile coastal ecosystems, diminishing both the invaluable physical and emotional benefits of beach experiences for beach goers and impacting local businesses. 

We ask the government to stop this flawed pipeline proposal being implemented. We encourage the South Australian Government to consider more environmentally sustainable options  for relocation of sand on Adelaide beaches.

The State Govt is proposing to dig up 10 kilometres of Adelaide's beautiful, yet fragile beaches and dunes from Semaphore to West Beach in order to install a Sand Recycling Pipeline system to service West Beach with sand that will contain micro plastic particles. The sand will be pumped in the form of a slurry via a HDPE (plastic) pipeline to West Beach where it will be quickly washed away due to its small particle size. The micro plastic particles contained in the sand due to the abrasion of the plastic pipeline will then find their way into the gulf and the local food chain.

The pipeline installation also involves clearing kilometres of fragile sand dunes, the construction of multiple permanent noisy pumping stations, and the harvesting of up to 115,000 cubic meters of sand from Semaphore and Grange Beaches annually.

The proposed pipeline includes two sand collection units at Semaphore and Grange Beach. Both of these iconic and popular beaches will be impacted by noise, anaerobic odour, intrusive heavy machinery on the beach and a depletion of quality sand remaining on the beach. This will have significant and ongoing impacts on beach goers, as well as the local environment, marine and coastal ecosystems and water quality.

There has been no environmental impact study done on the removal of 30,000 cubic metres of sand from Grange Beach. There has also been no sustainability study undertaken to determine the replenishment or regeneration of sand once such a vast amount of sand is removed annually from a flat beach like Grange. Grange beach has no protruding breakwater or groin to catch sand as it moves northwards.

Please sign this petition to show your support for the preservation of Adelaide's Northern beaches by stopping this flawed pipeline proposal being implemented, and encouraging the government of South Australia to consider more environmentally sustainable options for relocation of sand on Adelaide beaches.

Some of the key concerns about the proposed sand pipeline are described below:

• Widespread clearing of sand dunes during the pipeline construction will cause damage to the coastal dune environment including native dune vegetation and bird species. The removal of the fore-dune at the Terminus Street ramp to establish a 2,400 m2 sand collection unit will undermine the dune's ability to arrest coastal erosion.
• Grange Beach is the only northern Adelaide beach directly accessible by train. Placing sand collection activity with heavy machinery operating at Grange Beach will significantly diminish the beach amenity for all beach users including those seeking to access the Adelaide coast via public transport. This will also have a significant impact on local businesses. 
• The proposal outlines that microplastics generated by the movement of sand through the plastic pipeline will be deposited into the marine environment but, without any proper analysis, simply dismisses their impact as “insignificant.”
• The addition to the project of the Grange increment of 30,000 cubic metres is so recent that it has not been mentioned in the Impact Assessment prepared for the government in July 2021. There is no environmental impact study done on the Grange beach option. There has also been no sustainability study undertaken to determine the replenishment or regeneration of sand once it has been removed from Grange beach.
• The proposal suggests annually removing more sand from Grange Beach than is deposited through natural sand drift. There is no possibility of extracting 30,000 cubic metres of sand as allocated to the annual intake from Grange. This will result in the trucking of sand to the Grange intake and disruption to a far wider section of the coastline than presently indicated in the development application. This will have impacts on Henley, Grange and Tennyson. The depletion of Grange Beach sand will also result in a lack of sand supply for northward beaches such as Tennyson and West Lakes Shore, leading to erosion.
• Areas proposed for sand collection (including Grange) are already at great risk of current and future storm surge flooding. Harvesting sand from these areas will further increase this risk.
• According to the Department of Environment and Water, the existing pipeline servicing West Beach from the Torrens River outlet had to cease operation due to “coastal management issues.” The most recent proposed pipeline is also at risk of being based on flawed modelling and inaccurate hypothetical figures and become another waste of public money, while ruining some of Adelaide's iconic and invaluable northern beaches in the process.
• The project manager of the proposed Semaphore to West Beach Sand Recycling Pipeline Development has cited that many figures that have been provided are purely 'hypothetical'. Adelaide's  Northern Beaches and their interdependent coastal ecosystems are too valuable to the city of Adelaide, South Australia and its people to be decimated by a hypothetical experiment. Instead of securing the future of our coastline it will be damaging the future of Adelaide's northern beaches and their fragile beauty and ecosystems.