Dangerous to tamper with foreshore

Mr Wales maintains in "Give fast ships every chance" (Peninsula News, September 19) that the company has done some carefully research.

I wonder what he means by this.

My research, mostly speaking to master mariners and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Navigation, tells me that a fast reliable commuter ferry service from Ettalong to Circular Quay is completely unviable.

You either need an enormous boat to withstand the open seas, which will be unable to get in and berth at either end or you have a small vessel which can berth but which will not be able to withstand the open seas.

Research collected by the Manly Hydraulics Laboratory suggests that with wave heights of 2.5m occurring more than 15 per cent of the time, it would not be safe for any ferry, similar to the Sydney Ferries' catamarans in use today, to cross the open sea.

Dr Peter Cowell, from the Marine Institute at Sydney University, maintains that the whole Peninsula is unstable.

He, along with other scientists, believes that the planet is warming up and that the seas are rising.

He has shown modelling which demonstrates what is likely to happen to Bondi and Manly.

The recent Tasmanian study showed that for every 90cm rise in sea level next to a flat sand-plain, such as the Peninsula, then water could be expected to cross 90m of land. That is nearly the length of two swimming pools.

This water would reach across the Esplanade, which is another reason why it is so silly for people to insist on cutting down the vegetation along the foreshore.

It is dangerous to tamper with the foreshore of the Peninsula.

Many of the reports authorised by the local authorities such as the Patterson Britten Report 2000, mention a litany of mistakes made by the authorities over the decades. Each new report has to try to rectify the previous mistakes, all no doubt made with good intentions.

We now have parts of The Esplanade being undermined and Lance Webb Reserve in a dangerous state from erosion.

It has all been an expensive exercise for the public and yet we see another body of people wanting to tamper yet again.

No one can plead ignorance now about these matters, not if they have done their research thoroughly.

Margaret Lund, Woy Woy Bay