"The bags would then be removed by barge. The sand inside the bags had been filled at the site so there are no issues with releasing foreign organisms via this process," he said. "There is already a lot of sea life attached to the bags, which was one way the reef has worked as intended. The under-sea area will quickly return to its former state once the engineering works are completed."
The site would be surveyed once the work was complete, and then annually to ensure that natural processes had resumed and that partial removal of the reef had worked.
The Mount Maunganui Reef Trust obtained resource consent in August 2000 to construct the submerged reef about 250m offshore from the Tay Street-Marine Parade corner. The $1.5 million reef, built from 2005 to 2008 with donations from the public and community funding groups, had never functioned as intended.
The five-year consent term lapsed in 2010 and the regional council, as the Resource Management Act regulator, needed to consider options for its future management, Mr Grogan said.
A specialist review recommended the reef structure be removed in a staged process. Removing the largest geotextile containers would most likely eliminate health and safety and environmental issues, he said.
The work would likely take up to two weeks and was weather-dependant. There would be signposts asking water-users to keep away from the barge.
