Surfers act to stop sand dredges at Pakiri

Surfer Dave Ivory tries to stop a Sea-Tow barge at Pakiri.

Surfers at Pakiri are taking on dredges they say are devastating wave-producing sandbanks.

Tired of watching the sand miners suck up fine white sand at the beach north of Auckland, surfers have paddled out to the dredge to stop it from dropping its anchor - illegal if people or boats are within 50m.

"You can't keep taking [sand] that's not being renewed," said Simon Carter, who lives near the beach and surfs there frequently. "You are going to have an empty sandpit at the end."

Locals have complained for years that companies that take the sand to replenish other Auckland beaches, such as Kohimarama, are ruining the surf at Pakiri. Now, the company's contract has come up for renewal before the Auckland Regional Council, and residents want it denied.

"Every cubic metre of sand that they mine is a cubic metre of erosion on our beach," said Te Arai resident Marianne Riley. "A few people are allowed to mine a resource that is finite to make a bit of a profit at the cost of everybody else."

Sand-mining companies Sea-Tow and McCallum Bros applied to renew their permits to extract 76,000cu m of sand annually for the next 20 years after their last 10-year contract ran out in February. The companies can continue to mine while the ARC reviews the contract.

But that mining is causing major erosion, according to locals. Trees along the beach have been uprooted because of sand shifts and the surfing isn't as good as it used to be, they say.

"Every time a nice [sand] bank appears, they come down and suck it away. So the next time a surf comes up, that sand isn't there for the waves to break on," said surfer Dave Ivory, who recently hung on to the side of a McCallum Bros vessel so it would not be able to drop anchor.

Mr Ivory said he and other surfers planned to hold a more direct protest on board a sand-sucking barge if the mining did not stop soon.

Bill Bates, general manager of McCallum Bros, said sand changes at the beach were due to natural causes.

"Nature is a far greater changer of the environment than the small quantity of sand that's extracted."

About 700 submissions were sent to the ARC on the issue, nearly all against dredging. A five-day hearing is planned, starting on February 9.