Portland Beach Safety and Restoration Alliance is urging the state government to take action on an eight-kilometre beach wall described as a a "fatality waiting to happen".
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Executive officer Dean Beckman said the citizen science group, endorsed by the Department of Land, Water and Planning and Deakin University, had collected significant amounts of data and surveying of the coastline under the Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program.
Mr Beckman said the rock wall was a "fatality waiting to happen".
"The community does not want any more reports or studies of the rock wall, we want immediate action to reduce the risk," he said.
"Improving the few existing old-style groynes is a shovel ready-project that will immediately reduce the risk. If these preventable incidents occurred in the private sector, company directors would be sent to jail."
Mr Beckman has been spurred on by a near-miss in 2016 when his daughter was almost crushed by a rock.
Recently, an elderly woman broke her femur when she fell from the rock wall and ended up in 13-degree waters until emergency services arrived.
A 17-year-old Portland boy died in 2014 after falling on an engineered section of the rock wall.
The rock wall was initially constructed to halt significant beach erosion of up to 200 meters, which occurred after the Port of Portland was constructed in the 1950's. Some residents spent $300,000 of their own money constructing the wall to save their properties.
Mr Beckman described the construction of the rock wall as a "band-aid solution".
"We've spent the past 16 months collecting data with Deakin and our research suggests that by putting in reef groynes, they will start improving the area," he said.
"The only way to safely address the issue is to use a combination of outer reefs and sand renourishment.
"Correctly designed T-shaped reef groynes are the most economical solution and are scientifically proven as the best form of protecting the coastline from accelerated climate change and rising sea levels."
Groynes are classified as a hard alternative to stop erosion. Groynes are constructed in the sea in fixed locations and have been proven to help to create beaches and stop erosion.
The Portland Beach Safety and Restoration Alliance has written to Minister for Environment Lily D'Ambrosio presenting their findings and urging state government funding to trial reef groynes.
"Without immediate corrective action we will certainly incur another serious injury and-or a fatality," Mr Beckman said.
"Funds allocated to rock wall rebuilding will be directed toward a more scientifically proven, proactive and adaptive approach to coastal erosion, that will increase safety and reduce ongoing maintenance costs for local and state government.
"We don't want another study, we need urgent action."
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