Budgewoi Beach Dunecare Inc

 

 




Stage 2 Southern Area

 

   

The project involved large scale spraying of Bitou Bush between Coloma St and the second beach car park using several Council spray trucks and operators (early May 09 4-5days). The western side of Budgewoi road from Slade Park south to the Toukley Golf Club boundary was also sprayed (early June 09 2-3 days).


A slasher was used to create an edge break from the road and tracks into the Bitou Bush to allow access by spray units (April 09) 

 

A D7 dozer was used to create a buffer for the environmental burn and to distribute sand to reform dunes north of the first car park and south of Coloma St to a shape and contour representative of natural conditions consistent with methods described in the Coastal Dune Management Manual. The dozer was also used to redistribute sand to ensure the beach access was of an acceptable gradient (1:8 or lower). A 10m buffer zone was also created by the dozer as a fire break for the environmental burn (June 09 4 days).

 

 

 Budgewoi South

Accessways A beach access way, viewing platform and fencing at the first car park south of Coloma St was constructed to define the public access point to the beach consistent with methods described in the Coastal Dune Management Manual (July and August 09)
 
Environmental Burn
In his thesis on "Ecosystem Development on Rehabilitated Sites Following Sand Mining on the Central Coast of New South Wales" at the Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation,The University of Queensland, Hery Suhartoyo (2008) found that the structural development of all unburnt rehabilitated sites clearly showed progression towards the native reference site condition. Ten years after planting, the growth of woody stems in the unburnt rehabilitated site created a diverse
vegetation structure, whereas burnt rehabilitated sites showed less structural development. Fire had a significant impact on the basal area development of young double-mined sites, but had no significant effect within relatively older single-mined sites.

Stage 2 may well be a significant showcase for different types of burns. The area north of carpark 1 was pile burned and the area to the south of carpark 1 was burnt in situ. Today, 5 years after the burn event images shown below show a difference in the vegetation regrowth.



looking north from carpark1
looking south		  

Environmental burn of Bitou Bush carcass as a training exercise for the NSW RFS and NSWFB took place in early July 09 over one day.

 

Differing types of environmental burns were carried out at Budgewoi in 2009 following herbicide spraying,
these included:

 

Pile burn or wind row burn, and in-situ burn.

 

Several important reasons for these burns were:

  • Soil conditioning – adding nutrient.
  • Native seed germination.
  • Burning of bitou seed on ground surface to 25mm below ground level.
  •  Germination cycle of bitou was reduced to 2 years from 7 years.
  •  Ability to install grid system of quadrats for plant layouts and monitoring

 

Wrack was collected from the Tuggerah Lakes and dried prior to spreading over the site as mulch (June/July 09 1-2 days).  

Accessways
  
 

Timeline

Timeline Stage 2