When 17-year-old Cooper Allen was attacked this morning, he was surfing above the cement bases of a half-built shark barrier the New South Wales Government had promised would help protect surfers.

Installation of the 'eco barrier' at the popular surf break Lighthouse Beach, on the New South Wales far north coast, had been stopped only in recent months. The surf had already begun dismantling the underwater construction and scattering metal parts along the coast.

The protection had itself become a hazard. A different barrier, the Aquarius Barrier, installed at nearby Lennox Head, had become what locals called an "environmental disaster". Both trials have been abandoned, and taxpayer money had been spent for nothing.

Then a local popular high school student was attacked. According to witnesses, the shark was a great white and about 3.5 metres long. It came up from behind Cooper, who was on his board. He is now in hospital with deep gashes across the upper-thigh.

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Whatsapp Cooper Allen was attacked by a shark about 9:00am.

Since February 2015, there have been four serious shark attacks within one kilometre of the beach.

Shark attacks in local area: September 2014 - English expat Paul Wilcox is killed by a shark while swimming at one of Byron Bay's most protected beaches.

is killed by a shark while swimming at one of Byron Bay's most protected beaches. February 2015 - Japanese national Tadashi Nakahara is surfing at Shelly Beach at Ballina when he is savagely attacked.

is surfing at Shelly Beach at Ballina when he is savagely attacked. July 2015 - Just one beach over, 32-year-old bodyboarder Mathew Lee is attacked, flown to Gold Coast hospital with severe wounds to both legs.

is attacked, flown to Gold Coast hospital with severe wounds to both legs. July 2015 - 52-year-old Craig Ison is attacked by a shark at Evans Head.

is attacked by a shark at Evans Head. November 2015 - Sam Morgan mauled by bull shark at Lighthouse Beach.

Local businesses have begun to feel the pinch.

"You can't overestimate how potentially damaging this is to community," said Bruce MacKenzie, lead journalist at ABC NSW North Coast.

"This is a community that lives on beach tourism.

"A friend of mine runs a local surf shop there and at one stage last year he said sale of surf gear had dropped by 90 per cent and overall sales had dropped by 50 per cent.

"There's a real feeling in community something does need to be done."

But there was a widespread feeling the eco barrier was not the solution. Locals said it wouldn't work, that it could ruin the surf break, and it may even create a hazard by snagging and trapping surfers underwater.

A few months ago, the Department of Primary Industries admitted the barriers would post a "moderate" risk to the safety of surfers.

Cooper was one of many who opposed the barrier technology.

"We still go out there without the net, at our own choice," the teenager told the Australian two months ago. "I don't think there is any need for it."

Unlike traditional shark nets, the eco barrier was designed to avoid netting the sharks and other marine life. The area around Lighthouse Beach is rich in sea life. A design by the Eco Shark Barrier company had first been trialled for four months at Coogee beach in WA, in early 2014.

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Whatsapp Lighthouse Beach closed after shark attack.

But what worked at Coogee did not work at Ballina. Hack spoke with Craig Moss, the founder of Eco Shark Barrier, and he referred all interview requests to the NSW Government. He was able to say the amount of sand movement had made it impossible for divers to install the moorings, because the work they did one day would be covered by sand the next morning.

Don Munro, president of the local boardriders club, says local surfers warned the Government of exactly this problem; there would be too much sand movement.

"Two thirds of the way through last year we were informed they were going to go ahead and do a trial of the eco-barrier," he said.

"Installers came from Western Australia ... They needed seven metres of depth to put them in and when they got here they found it was four metres."

Installation went ahead at Lighthouse Beach.

'I don't know what was eco about it'

Another kind of barrier, the Aquarius Barrier, designed by a different company, Global Marine Enclosures, was installed at Seven Mile Beach, Lennox Head, about 10km up the coast. According to the DPI website, this also had an eco-friendly design.

Both NSW beaches are much rougher than Coogee beach.

"We had an east coast low backed by another east coast low and it picked up what little they had put in and dumped it on the beach," says Don, who lives near Lighthouse Beach.



"It became a hazard to anyone walking on the beach."

It's an environmental disaster."

"At [Lighthouse Beach] we had a massive anchor protruding out of the sand - at Lennox they have signs up saying 'Be cautious. There are anchors and metal buried in the sand'."

At Lennox Head, contractors had also installed the nylon netting.

"Head-high swell came over the course of the weekend and it started to fray and disintegrate and it became obvious it wouldn't work there either," says Bruce MacKenzie.

Don Munro says plastic from the barrier designed by Global Marine Enclosures has been scattered for kilometres.

"I don't know what was eco about it," he says.

Minister won't say what barrier cost

The shark barrier trials were announced last year as part of a $16 million State Government package that also included aerial surveillance, an awareness program, 'smart' drum lines and 4G-listening buoys that detect sharks as they swim past.

According to Bruce MacKenzie, the aerial surveillance program is a helicopter that covers an enormous section of coast and was far away, possibly near the Queensland border, when Cooper was attacked this morning. The listening buoys only detect tagged sharks - there are many more untagged ones. We don't know if today's shark was tagged. The 'smart' drum lines are only deployed when there's a known shark risk. We don't know if the devices were deployed at the time of the attack.

The attack on Cooper underlines the problems of 'managing' attack risk on a stretch of coast of hundreds of kilometres, and thousands of people and sharks.

Then there are questions about why authorities did not listen to surfers who told them the beach was too rough for the barrier designs. Apart from the cost of the installation, which may be more than a million dollars, there is the opportunity cost - the drones or listening buoys or other tech that could have been installed in time for the risky summer season.

"There's a bit of 'I told you so' going on," says Bruce MacKenzie.

"The Minister was asked in Parliament what the barriers cost.

"He didn't give a figure."

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Whatsapp An artist's impression of the Eco Shark Barrier 'moore and pile' design.

Department of Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair told Hack the two barriers were not a government mistake, but simply an ambitious trial that had been discontinued.

"This is us trying to lead the world in an area where people haven't head ideas for some time," he said.

He confirmed the main problem with installing the barrier at Lighthouse Beach had been sand movement and the shifting depth of the sea floor.

"When we went to first install, the depth was fine," he said. "But we had a number of big east coast lows this winter and when they went to start installing there wasn't the depth."

According to the DPI website “Eco Shark Barrier will remove the materials when sea conditions allow.”

A tender has been put out for the removal of the Aquarius Barrier at Lennox Head.

According to locals, this was foreseeable. They had warned Government about this problem.

Minister Blair said there had been "lots of consultation with the community".

"To say no-one wanted this isn't right," he said.

"But we want to make sure we look to new measures for a 2016 response to an age-old problem."

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to make clearer the distinction between the two barriers. Locals were referring to the Aquarius Barrier as an “environmental disaster”