View to the West of Manning River and Harrington Breakwall, Harrington, NSW

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Until about 10-12 years ago ? the Manning River at Harrington used to exit along this breakwall to the sea however these days the river makes its way to sea across a vast area of shallow sandy shoals a few hundred metres south of this original breakwall channel making it difficult for even the smallest vessels to cross the bar to the open sea.

The progressive accumulation of silt here at the northern exit to sea of the Manning River has seen the historically once busy shipping port of Harrington and the Manning River upstream Ports of Taree and Wingham effectively cut off to the sea.
The lengthy closure of the Harrington channel as well as other channels of the river silting up has led to calls for parts of the river to be regularly dredged. After many years of community efforts a $300,000 community funded dredge now operates in the Manning River funded in part by the community, council and the state government.
So far the dredge has focussed on silt affected areas within the river but pressure to tackle the problems at Harrington are likely to grow although its clear a much bigger effort will be required if the intention is to open Harrington Seaway, and keep it opened.

The reasons for the closure of the river here at Harrington may be more complex but certainly significantly increased land clearing in the Manning River's 8420 km² watershed has contributed. This has been coupled with potentially less rain in the region as a byproduct of the increased land clearing which in turn leads to a lack of regular major flood events in relatively recent times.
Other factors possibly potentially impacting on the river's closure are no doubt in play, including climate change and changes in ocean currents which may be exacerbating the problem.

Breakwall construction in the estuary has been ongoing since the commencement of works in the 1890's. The breakwalls were designed by coastal engineers and hydrologists to alter the flow of the river with the intent to increase the power of outflowing river water, in theory, naturally maintaining a deeper channel at the rivers entrance to the sea.
Clearly the engineering solutions have failed in the present climatic circumstances and it appears governments are reluctant to throw money at remedying the situation.
It is worth noting that the Manning River actually has a second entrance, at Farquhar inlet at Old Bar, just a few kilometres to the south. This entrance is usually either fully closed or a series of shallow sandy shoals, not dissimilar to the modern day Harrington entrance. The Manning is the only river on the NSW coast which has a dual entrance.

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Taken in: Australia / New South Wales / Manning Point (show map)

Taken on: July 31, 2017

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