Airlie Beach Marina Owner Uses Dredging Material To Transform ‘Eyesore’ Into Community Parkland

A marina owner plans on creating a community parkland in Airlie Beach, north Queensland, using material relocated through maintenance dredging.

Owner of Abell Point Marina in Airlie Beach, Paul Darrouzet, began maintenance dredging in his marina more than 12 months ago.

He said dredging was very much a normal operation for marinas and harbours, and was needed because the seabed was too shallow and stopped larger boats from entering.

“It was really necessarily for us to maintain the integrity of the facility to start the dredging, and also to fill that great big void which is an eyesore coming into our town,” Mr Darrouzet said.

Mr Darrouzet said he was using the material taken off the seabed floor to fill that void and build a community park next to the marina where there used to be a dredge pond, which was implemented by previous owners when developing the marina.

“We have 10,000 cubic metres of top soil ready to be deposited on top of it, and you can see the start of the turfing and landscape has already commenced,” he said.
Weather depending, they hope to have the park finished by August this year.