Cooks Beach nourishment underway

A beach nourishment work at the Purangi Estuary end of Cooks Beach is officially underway, Thames-Coromandel District Council said in their latest announcement.

The work started last week and will take about 14 days to complete. According to the council, it will involve the extraction of 1650m3 of sand from the spit and placing it over the backstop wall and across the area.

The work will be completed under a resource consent.

The backstop wall was installed in November last year and sits below ground level to protect existing infrastructure (road, footpath, water supply, stormwater and waste water pipes) from the sea.

The sand placed over the next two weeks will form a protective cover over the backstop wall and provide an area of high tide beach. This beach nourishment will need to be maintained (topped up) periodically as sand is moved by the tide, but this will occur when required.

Planting is also scheduled for the upper beach nourishment area early next month to help bind the sand in place, said the council.