ANOTHER boat grounding on the dangerous Mooloolah River bar sent a clear message that urgent action was needed, State MP Fiona Simpson said.
Ms Simpson said she had taken up the issue with the new Transport Minister as the current situation at the entrance to the Mooloolaba Harbour was risking lives.
“I lobbied the previous Government who claimed solutions under investigation were too expensive but then refused to provide details of their investigation publicly,” Ms Simpson said.
“Lives are being put at risk on what used to be one of the safest protected harbour entrances on the east coast.”
Ms Simpson said that the previous dredging program had been hampered by bad weather with a standby dredge only able to operate spasmodically, sometimes as little as two hours a week.
Alternative measures which were being investigated included submerging the sand pumping pipeline under the river to attach from the eastern wall to allow more continuance dredging without boat traffic interference and a mobile sandshifter.
Ms Simpson she had been contacted by worried fishers about the State of the Mooloolaba Harbour entrance as well as experienced recreational boaties who had run aground on the dangerous bar which had formed outside of the harbour entrance.
Even the Mooloolaba Coast Guard with some of the coast’s most experienced boaties struck the bar and overturned at the beginning of the year, after a wave hit their boat, and forced them on to the sand bar.