Blackhead sand set to replenish Wellington beach

Some golden southern sand is heading north to the capital.

Blackhead Quarries is sending 2400 tonnes of sand by train from Dunedin to Wellington to replenish the Oriental Bay beach.

It is the second time the company has done the job. It did it in 2015 and, 10 years later, it will once again send the sand north by rail.

The Wellington beach has slowly lost sand over the past 10 years and needs replenishing.

The sand was chosen by the Wellington City Council as it had the right golden colour and coarse grading for the project, a council spokesman said.

Blackhead Quarries general manager Grant Pellowe said the sand came from the Ferny Hill quarry behind Mt Allan. It was transported to the company’s Walton Park site and loaded into open-top containers and trucked to a nearby rail-head.

With 20t containers used by KiwiRail there would be a few trips north, Mr Pellowe said.

The project is expected to cost the Wellington City Council $790,000.

It is the second Oriental Bay replenishment since the original enhancement project in 2003, when 16,100cum of sand was placed around the bay. That sand was transported from Golden Bay, but the quarry at Separation Point, near Takaka, has since stopped operating.

Natural processes shift 100cum to 400cum of sand each year.

Mr Pellowe said the new sand was quite dense and did not move easily, which was needed with the Wellington wind.