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Taree – Daily Telegraph – 19 Feb 15
Furious Taree council is turning the tide: Rising sea calls slammed
Alicia Wood
A study commissioned by Eurobodalla and Shoalhaven councils found the predictions were too high, and there were “no discernible” variations in rises across the NSW coast.
Environment Minister Rob Stokes.
THE state government’s predictions of “catastrophic” future sea level rises has been slammed by Taree Council, which says the current predictions are too high.
Greater Taree Council is calling on Environment Minister Rob Stokes to lower the benchmark by 14cm.
The council voted last night to lobby Mr Stokes to reinstate uniform sea level predictions across all coastal councils because there is “no local or regional variation to sea level rise along the NSW coastline”.
The move comes as The Daily Telegraph revealed councils such as Gosford were predicting sea levels to rise by 40cm by 2050.
In 2012 the NSW government gave councils the power to set their own predictions for sea level rises, taking local conditions into account.
But insurers have advised councils that they needed to use benchmarks set by the government in 2009 — a predicted sea level rise of 40cm by 2050 and 90cm by 2100.
A study commissioned by Eurobodalla and Shoalhaven councils found the predictions were too high, and there were “no discernible” variations in rises across the NSW coast.
The variations were used as a justification for letting councils issue their own predictions.
Greater Taree Council is using the Eurobodalla and Shoalhaven research to argue the benchmark needs to be lowered — to a rise of 26cm by 2050, increasing to 98cm by 2100. Greater Taree Council senior planning and environmental leader Richard Pamplin said the reinstatement of uniform sea rise predictions would mean councils could not get different results using different studies.
“We have a duty of care to our community to use the best information available,” Mr Pamplin said.
“We are calling on the state government to reintroduce the sea level policy based on this new work.”
But Mr Stokes said the “one-size-fits-all” approach would not work. “To impose a single standard on every beach is not a sensible policy, you want local flexibility,” Mr Stokes said. “The concern is it would create huge uncertainty along the coast and potentially sterilise large areas of the coast from any development.”
Mr Stokes said insurance companies should not be asking councils to comply with the 2009 sea level rise benchmarks because it was not government policy.
He said councils had a responsibility to take the views of their community into account: “Local planning is a fundamental, core responsibility of local councils. It is appropriate that local communities should be able to have involvement.”
