Smith seeks action on channel at Oyster Beach
Member for Gosford Ms Kathy Smith is seeking Ministerial action to dredge the channel off Oyster Beach.
Marine Rescue Central Coast has been warning that the channel has moved and that navigation markers are no longer accurate.
"It is with some alarm that I have been hearing reports over the last few days about the silt build up at the bar off Oyster Beach," said Ms Smith.
"I have been advised that this situation has been serious with an alarming narrowing of the channel creating a danger for craft in the area," Ms Smith said.
"This is especially the case when the Palm Beach ferry is negotiating the channel," she said.
"I am unaware of any proposal to undertake this work or any timetable for doing so.
"This is a much-used area for leisure boating and we don't need a disaster to happen.
"We know that around March 2010, following the dredging that was done in 2009, there were reports that the area was already beginning to silt up again.
Mr Ron Cole from Central Coast Marine Rescue said the channel ran along from the southern end of Lobster Beach to Little Box Head.
As a vessel is leaving Brisbane Water, there is a substantial sand bar on the western side. "That sand bar has gradually been moving eastward," Mr Cole said.
"Instead of it being 30 metres wide the channel is now down to eight metres so the channel width has substantially reduced since the council dredged it a few years ago.
"Apart from that, the sand is moving onto the channel itself so the water depth is reducing and is often below, or at or around, two to three metres, so if you are in a yacht that draws two metres you have great difficulty crossing the bar."
Mr Cole said the changes to the channel resulted in Marine Rescue issuing media alerts to warn the public about the danger.
"At the peak of the holiday season I was concerned that visitors to the area wouldn't know the channel was incorrectly marked," he said.
"The RMS are aware of it and they have put in place two additional marker buoys to indicate the new parts of the channel or where it is now to where it was two months ago.
"There is a constant argument as to who is the organisation responsible.
"Council say they have no responsibility for anything on the water and they got bludgeoned into doing something about it last time."
However, Mr Cole said he was critical of the action that Gosford Council undertook to fix the channel the last time silting occurred.
"If you are going to dredge a channel you would put a suction dredge in and relocate the silt to another place.
"What they did was put two iron bars behind a substantial vessel and drag it away -- it wasn't really dredging, it was grading," he said.
According to Mr Cole there are 7000 registered vessels using Brisbane Water including about 1500 with permanent moorings on the waterway.
"That is without the ferries and all the visitors from Sydney, Pitwater and the Hawkesbury so potentially there are a lot of people coming in and out.
"Fortunately there are not a lot of accidents on the bar.
"We get called to support incoming vessels and most of the people hear about the problems and go elsewhere.
"In the history of the bar, during periods of substantial rain in the area, the outfall from Brisbane Water would scour the channel.
"That doesn't seem to happen anymore even though we get the big downfalls.
"I don't think it becomes urgent to fix the channel until there is an accident on the bar and someone gets hurt.
"It is an official ocean bar according to some RMS documents but sometimes they leave it out and just say it is the entrance to Brisbane Water.
"The State Government probably should take an interest."
According to Mr Cole the problem of silt build up in Brisbane Water is not confined to the Oyster Beach channel.
"Channels around Blackwall and St Huberts Island are notoriously bad and getting narrower," he said.
Media statements, 2 and 3 Feb 2016
Kathy Smith, Member for Gosford
Interview, 2 Feb 2016
Ron Cole, Central Coast Marine Rescue