COASTAL OBSERVER

Georgetown County is awaiting state approval of a plan that officials hope will lead to its beaches becoming eligible for federal aid to repair storm damage. When that comes, it is relying on an ad hoc beach committee to help move the plan forward.

“This is a community effort,” County Council Member Stella Mercado said. “We need all the people who care about our beaches to step up.”

The draft beach management plan calls for beach nourishment, inlet management and increased public access.

John Martin, who chairs the committee that Mercado put together in the winter, is drafting a letter to the council urging it to move forward with the goals in its updated beach management plan.

“These are urgent things that need to be done,” he said. “This council is actually doing some of it.”

A state law passed in 1990 mandated that local governments in the coastal county adopt a comprehensive beach management plan. Georgetown County adopted its current beachfront management plan in November 1992, three years after Hurricane Hugo reset the benchmark for destructive storms. 

Among the goals was limiting development in areas with high erosion rates, like the south end of Litchfield Beach and Garden City; expanding beach access to leverage state and funding; and keeping the plan itself current with updates every five years.

None of those goals were met. One area that was identified for public access in 1992 was the south end of Litchfield Beach. It was later developed as the Peninsula at Inlet Point South, where property owners  funded a private beach nourishment project in 2023 and are seeking permits to mine additional sand from Midway Inlet for storm repairs.

The county hired Coastal Science and Engineering to prepare a feasibility study for creating an “engineered beach” at Garden City and Litchfield using sand dredged offshore. Once established, the areas would be eligible for federal funding to repair erosion damage from major storms.

“Renourishment has really sustained the beaches,” Steven Traynum, president of Coastal Science, told County Council at a workshop last month.

The firm designed the nourishment project at the Peninsula and the project that put 1.1 million cubic yards on the beach at Pawleys Island in 2020. It also provided data that was used in the 1992 county beachfront management plan.

The update was submitted to the state Department of Environmental Services earlier this year. The agency provided comments and is reviewing the latest draft of the plan.

“The document really is an inventory of structures and policy,” Traynum said.

It also sets out short- and long-term goals for “beach preservation, access enhancement, erosion control and disaster recovery.” 

In areas where there is no beach access for the general public – the south ends of Garden City and Litchfield Beach along with Litchfield by the Sea – state and federal funds can’t be used for nourishment projects.

“There could be creative ways where those communities could come up with public access, like day passes,” Traynum said.

There is also a need for better access for emergency vehicles, particularly on Litchfield Beach, he said.

But even without public access, areas in Litchfield and DeBordieu could benefit from federal disaster aid if Georgetown County sought the funds and had some oversight of the repairs, according to the 2024 feasibility study.

That study pointed to the need for the county to work with “local stakeholders” on beach management plans.

After attending the annual meeting of the S.C. Beach Advocates, Mercado said she talked with the county administrator, Angela Christian, about forming a similar group within the county.

“It includes every single community that touches on the beach,” Mercado said.

She has attended most of the monthly meetings, along with Council Chairman Clint Elliott and Council Member Bob Anderson.

Since there are no public officials on the ad hoc committee, Mercado said she didn’t think it was subject to the state’s open meetings law. But she said there was no intent to keep it from public view.

Since it was Mercado who formed the committee with the goal of reviewing and helping to implement the beach management plan, it meets the definition of a public body, said Taylor Smith, attorney for the S.C. Press Association.

“They’re saying everything’s for the purpose of the public,” he said.

The committee should provide notice of its meetings, provide an agenda and keep minutes, Smith said.

Martin started keeping minutes after the first meeting in February, but said he was unsure of the committee’s status.

Mercado said she would make sure notice is given of future meetings.

At its meeting last week, the committee heard from Ray Funnye, who was in the last day of his career as the county Public Services director, a career that began the same year the county beach management plan was adopted.

Among the goals that the committee wants the county to adopt is to make sure Funnye’s replacement stays on top of beach management.

“Our point was ‘hey, don’t let this get lost,’” Martin said.

He saw the need for beach management after Hurricane Ian in 2022. Martin is the president of the Litchfield Beaches Property Owners Association, and he got approval for emergency sand scraping to repair the dune at Litchfield Beach that was flattened by the hurricane.

He noted that the draft beach management plan estimates the economic value of the county’s beaches at $570 million annually. With the paper mill and steel mill closed in Georgetown, that’s something the county can’t afford to ignore, he said.

The committee has yet to discuss ways to fund an engineered beach, Martin said. There is still work to be done before it can even start to seek permits and funding from the state, if it becomes available.

Adopting a current beach management plan is a prerequisite for getting any state funding.

Martin said he was told that the state’s review was to make sure the correct statutes and regulations were cited, not to consider the plan’s goals and strategies. He’s optimistic that approval will be forthcoming.

The state Department of Environmental Services also reviewed the plan for public access and checked its objectives for alignment with the state’s management goals, an agency spokeswoman said. When the county’s first adopted a beach management plan, it was submitted to the state Coastal Council. That later became the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management. It is now the Bureau of Coastal Management within Department of Environmental Services, and the review checked to make sure the names were correct.

Amy Armstrong, executive director of the S.C. Environmental Law Project, is one of two people invited to join the committee who do not have a property interest in the beachfront. The other is Pam Martin, a professor at Coastal Carolina University who specializes in sustainability and has worked on the state’s resiliency plan.

Armstrong served on a state panel that was formed when South Carolina’s policy on beachfront management changed from “retreat” to “preservation.” (The county’s current plan embraces a 40-year retreat policy.)

“We did agree on the definition of beach preservation,” Armstrong said of her work on the panel. “I feel good about that.”

It was defined as “techniques such as beach nourishment, the landward movement and/or removal of habitable structures whenever necessary and feasible, the conservation of undeveloped shorelines and sand dune creation and stabilization using sand fencing and native vegetation.”

Beach nourishment is just one part, Armstrong noted.

“I loved the idea of a real beach management plan that looks at likely areas of vulnerability,” she said.

The law project brings a different perspective to the beach committee, said Monica Whalen, a staff attorney who has attended its meetings. “We hope to encourage the county to focus on the natural functions of the beach,” she added.

Martin said his goal is to bring people together with a range of experience. The town of Pawleys Island is represented, as is DeBordieu, which has conducted a series of privately-funded beach nourishment projects.

The committee’s message to council so far is “you guys are on the right path. We can’t lose sight of this,” Martin said.