DonabatePortrane.net

Portrane Beach Coastal Erosion 10 Feet in 24 Hrs
Hi everyone there has being an ongoing problem concerning coastal erosion in the Portrane/Donabate area and Fingal County Council have blatently fogeed off its residents saying that it is "not urgent".
In just 1 high tide 10-12 feet has being washed away with just another 30 feet before the sea will be in on the Burrow.
Portrane is under threat from the sea and if the Burrow is washed away then Donabate will be threatened causing thousands of people to be displaced. A local reporter visited the beach yesterday and said "this beach looks like it was hit by an earthquake"

P.s Seeing is believing visit the beach dont forget Donabate is below "Sea Level"

That's scary. What can be done to stop it?

Yes ,it is scary.Families that go back many many generations in Donabate/Portrane/The Burrow/Corballis will tell you of stories of flooding that were told to them by their parents and grandparents ,me included.

We grew up being aware of the problems and where they occur regularly.Yes , you are right to worry as houses and apartments have been built where the watertable is rising.Also ,there is a stream of water that comes from donabate/malahide estuary underground into the village of Donabate.Many other areas in the village were flooded over the centuries and that is well known.

As a child running through the village or fields one would know where not to go due to marshy land .I have noticed so much erosion on the beaches in my 54 years of life that it is frightening.Going down like the titanic!.Maybe not in my lifetime,but due to the severe climate changes we are experiencing our children and grandchildren will be those most affected. There are islands off the coast of Malaysia that have put in flood defences to no avail and the community of inhabitants including animals have had to be evacuated for good and re settled on the mainland .Mary Robinson and Her foundation that is educating the world on the hazards of this the most catastrophic climate change due to Carbon dioxide omissions has highlighted this issue.Go to The Mary Robinson Foundation face book page.If you search you will come across her work with the women of these islands in the South Pacfic.These women in particular had been battling for years the effects of coastal erosion to be defeated in the end by the sea.!Their heritage and customs lost for future generations.

I have no idea what can be done for future generations but i would have at the front of my mind always the location of any property in the penninsula which either myself or my children were considering purchasing.It is a worry.I was reared in Donabate ,now that my family are reared i want to look into returning in a few years as does one or two of my now adult children.The question is ,is it wise to do so considering the future implications and the non insurance coverage if there is repeated flood damage to property and to the infrastructure.I love the penninsula as does my family .It's a great place to live and was in the past!

Hi everyone,
Its called people power thats the solution, Fingal County Council have danced around this issue for over 20 years we are holding a meeting in the Brook Pub on Monday night at 8.30p.m. My family have being in the Burrow for many generations we can rant and rave about climate change till we are blue in the face.
Now it is time for action we will have to force Fingal County Council into doing what they should have done 10 years ago.
Its not just "Climate Change" it is also due to Malahide/Portmarnock Marinas and Sea Defenses sea displacement
So what if we are their poor neighbours but why should we be not treated the same we need a sea defense and not next year we need it immediately 30 foot of topsoil is left and another high tide and it will be all over.
Who is going to rehome all these people dont forget Donabate is below "Sea Level" so it wont be just hundreds but thousands .

Go down to the Beach and see for yourself

it took Fingal coco an eternity to reinstate a road they wrecked. If that sort of response is anything to go by, the sea will be up to the Donabate Village before action is taken,

Maybe you should post some photos for effect

Good bit of the boardwalk is gone!

And, while no expert, it looks like another high tide will take a lot more!!

Absolutely frightening photos of the damage.!Once the sea breaches whats left of boundary bank.High tide and strong winds will in the blink of an eye cause death and destruction right through to Donabate together with the watertable rising in Donabate.That will be The Burrow /Portrane and Donabate gone as we know it!Similar to what happened in New Orleans!

I wouldn't be quiet as dramatic as Dowager, but that's certainly not good. Have FCC been out to assess this? It's a public safety issue at the very least.

So what is the science behind this, why is it happening?

There was a very high tidal prediction for Dublin on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thurs, reaching 4.5m in the early hours of Wednesday morning. This is higher than average and only occurs a few times during the year. When coupled with Low pressure this can be a little higher again and a strong southerly wind can also have an added effect. Winds from the NE , East to South usually result in waves on the beach at Portrane and much damage has been done in the last couple of years when spring tides and bad weather coincide. This too was the case on Wednesday.
I realise there are many questions around why the dunes here seem to have stopped regenerating and the sand along the length of the beach appears to shift (eg. the regeneration of the dunes on the north end of the paling fence that took place in a very short space of time whilst not at the south end), but the fact is we are exposed to the chances of the conditions above and there really is not too much protection left before Healys' Lane is flooded.
There are high tidal predictions of 4.4m on 14, 15, 16 November and 4.5m on the 14, 15 December. Lets hope the weather stays fair!

Ken wrote:I wouldn't be quiet as dramatic as Dowager, but that's certainly not good. Have FCC been out to assess this? It's a public safety issue at the very least.

Hi,
Fingal County Council say that the earliest they can come out to view this would possibly be "Monday" they do not seem to regard this as urgent, so possibly it might take a little bit longer for them to review this situation.

Hi this snippet was taken from the Dail during the "Boom" in 2004 and 0.78 million was allocated for Ireland that year regarding Coastal Erosion never mind all the millions that were squandered.

In 2004 the issue of Portrane Coastal Erosion was brought up by Mr English in the Dail

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/2004/04/27/00290.asp

Mr. English asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources if his attention has been drawn to the fact that over the past six month period the beach in Portrane, north County Dublin, has lost five feet in width due to coastal erosion; the plans he has to protect this beach from further coastal erosion; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources (Mr. D. Ahern): Primary responsibility for coastal protection works rests with the property owner, be that a private individual or a local authority. In this instance Fingal County Council has responsibility for the protection of Portrane coastline. My Department has not received any reports of erosion of Portrane beach in the past six months.

In 2002 my Department requested proposals from all coastal local authorities for consideration in the context of the 2003-2006 national coastal protection programmes. Fingal County Council submitted an application in respect of Portrane beach at an estimated cost of €326,305. In 2003, funding of €7,500 was provided to Fingal County Council towards some minor coastal protection works at the north end of Portrane.

Under the coastal protection programme for 2004 there is an Exchequer allocation of €0.78 million provided for the entire country. A final decision on the disbursement of the allocation to individual projects has not yet been made.

Ken may think i am being dramatic in highlighting what could happen to people and their lives overnight .They may be asleep in bed or out for the day or infirm/elderly and unable to get out quick enough!

I have a American friend who had to return to New Orleans to look for a elderly former employee of his family who had no relatives .He found her dead floating in her basement.!!Horrific.!

I myself have had to wade through floods to get to people's homes to meet them and i have had to assess the damage and the wreckage of their lives.My wellingtons were always in the back of my car just in case i was called out or got stuck somewhere myself!At the time i was working on the southside in a very built up area which had pockets of horrendous flooding.I worked for The HSE then.To this day the flooding is still happening in that area when the rain is torrential and the same people are going through this ordeal year after year.
It's happening right across the country,we are bit by bit going under.!

Dowager wrote:...death and destruction right through to Donabate together with the watertable rising in Donabate.That will be The Burrow /Portrane and Donabate gone as we know it!Similar to what happened in New Orleans!

You can hardly compare Portrane/Donabate to New Orleans? I understand there is a bit of erosion and a few more years could see the coastline changed and the possibility of more floods... but hardly the devastation that New Orleans saw. This whole thing seems blown a bit out of proportion, 10 feet in 24 hours?! My house will be gone next month! Come on?

Hi Gemma,
Visit Portrane Beach see for yourself.

P J Howell is the Director of Environmental issues with Fingal County Council. I suggest we all email him at pj.howell@fingalcoco.ie with photos of the damage done and info on the meeting tomorrow night. I know it's possibly only a slight chance but he might actually take some notice if he receives many mails on the same issue. (Sorry my belief in Fingal Co Co has been deeply shaken in recent times)

Shocking stuff. I noticed some damage, albeit more minor, on Donabate beach.


ps: hi all, nice forum.

Anyone attend the meeting? Did FCC send a rep?5

Hi,
Yes they had a representitive at the meeting, council workers (not engineers) were at the beach on Monday 22nd October they took photos & measurements and this was their response below:

Fingal County Council officials have visited the site to assess the damage to the dunes and the coastal pathway. It is estimated that approx 3-4m of dune was washed away. There is no immediate threat to any houses on the Burrow, but at the most critical location there are just 17 meters between a house and the eroding dune edge. The coastal pathway has been damaged over a length of approx 100m and this area to be made safe.
There has been a long history of dune erosion at Portrane and the dunes have been growing and declining over many decades. In 2007, the County Council commissioned a report on how to protect the dunes at Portrane and many of the measures recommended in the report have been implemented. The development of a coastal monitoring scheme was a key recommendation. Last year Fingal County Council helped the Burrow Residents Association apply for and secure leader funding for a simple monitoring programme to measure the retreat of the dunes. The purpose of monitoring the erosion was to provide a basis for going back the OPW to seek coastal protection funding. The residents had agreed to carry out the monitoring but to date have not carried out the monitoring programme and so we do not have the hard data necessary for discussions with the OPW.
Regarding the potential coastal protection measures it is important that any hard engineering solutions (e.g. rock armour etc) are carefully considered, because of the long term detrimental impacts these can have on the dunes to the north of the affected site. The existing sandflow is mainly northward and by fixing the dunes at the southern end of the Burrow we may be deprive the northern parts of the Burrow of sand and this in turn is very likely to lead to erosion there as was the case a couple of years ago.
1. Obtain prices from specialist consultants to advice on the most appropriate coastal protection measures for this location
2. Obtain prices for an elevation study of Portrane and Rush beaches to help determine the sandflow patterns.
3. Re-establish monitoring pole 3 on Portrane beach
4. Work with the Burrow Residents Association to get the coastal monitoring programme up and running
5. Get prices for the reinstatement/ removal of the Chestnut paling fence in
front of the dune face that was damaged during the high water
6. Liaise with the OPW regarding the availability of finances to carry out any coastal protection measures.
Hans Visser
Biodiversity Officer

Coastalwarrior thanks so much for report on that meeting which unfortunately I couldn't get to either. Rightly or wrongly I get the impression that very little is being done as a stop gap measure while the monitoring is being made active. Knowing that further high tides are due mid November and early December I would have thought interim action of some sort would be a necessity. Are there any further meetings scheduled and out of curiousity were there many at the one on Monday?

Thanks again Coastalwarrior

If I lived in the house 17 meters from the erosion, I'd be more than a little worried about that response.

Not much urgency detected there.

Next meeting in the brook on Thur 15 Nov at 8.30p.m.
Question : Has there being any studies done by the Fingal County Council prior to the Sea Defenses & Marinas for both Malahide and Portmarnock
Have they had adverse affects on Portrane coastline according to Fingal CC we cant even put a pebble on the beach to avert a breach at the Brook or it could affect the greater coastline but this was not the case with Malahide & Portmarnock

"Regarding the potential coastal protection measures it is important that any hard engineering solutions (e.g. rock armour etc) are carefully considered, because of the long term detrimental impacts these can have on the dunes to the north of the affected site"

Hi All,
Fingal Independent will be covering this story tomorrow Thursday at 5p.m at the Brook. So all concerned residents if you could show your support tomorrow would be appreciated.

P.s Dont forget its not just Healys Lane,but LongStone, The Burrow, Red Square and then Rogerstown Estuary and Straight on to Donabate.

Happy Swimming............