COASTAL OBSERVER

Negotiations are continuing between the town of Pawleys Island, state agencies and property owners at Prince George who say that a 2020 beach renourishment project on the island caused erosion along their shoreline.

“There’s some optimism that both sides are getting closer to a solution,” Mayor Brian Henry told Pawleys Island Civic Association members at their annual meeting over Labor Day weekend.

The town project placed 1.1 million cubic yards of offshore sand on the island’s beach, with most going to the narrow south end. The work received permits from the state Department of Health and Environmental Control and partial funding from the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

In 2022, Bud and Melesa Watts, owners of 1,065 acres at Prince George and the two northernmost beachfront lots, filed suit in Circuit Court saying that renourishment sand carried in the current had caused Pawleys Inlet to migrate south. The Prince George Community Association and other property owners in the development also filed suit, naming the town, its contractors and the state agencies.

The suits asked the court to order that Pawleys Inlet be restored to its location before the renourishment and that the erosion damage at Prince George be repaired. The town and the other defendants deny that the island’s renourishment was responsible for the inlet’s migration.

In April, the suits were stayed so that the parties could work on a proposal from Prince George to get state and federal permits to move the inlet north and renourish its beach.

“The town has been a willing participant in providing a solution,” Henry said.

Plans submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers in December showed the inlet moving more than 2,000 feet north toward the public parking area. Dredging a new inlet 750 feet from Pawleys Creek to the Atlantic Ocean would provide an estimated 185,000 cubic yards of sand that would be used to fill the natural inlet. Another 115,000 cubic yards of upland sand would be hauled in to renourish the Prince George beachfront, according to the plans.

“There are three main issues that are being discussed,” Henry said. “Number one, who’s going to pay for it.”

The new location of the inlet is also a topic of discussion.

“Thirdly, and most importantly for us is we need assurance from Prince George that they will not oppose future beach renourishments for Pawleys,” Henry said.

The parties held two days of mediation earlier this year and met for another session last month. The mediator submits reports to the court.

The issue of future renourishment is important because the southern portion of the island is eligible for federal funding to maintain the “engineered beach” created by the 2020 project. The Corps of Engineers received $14 million in disaster relief funds to place offshore sand on the south end beach to replace sand lost to Hurricane Ian in 2022.

Before that work can start, the town needs easements from three property owners that are required by the Corps. It has easements from 110 other owners in the project area, but the three said the easements would allow public access across their land. 

The town’s previous effort to condemn the easements was quashed in Circuit Court. 

“My goal, the town’s goal, is to get those easements signed and in hand by March,” Henry said. 

That would allow the Corps to conduct the renourishment in the fall of 2025. The mobilization of the dredge would allow additional renourishment up to Third Street that would be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the S.C. Emergency Management Division.

“We will get a full beach renourishment that will restore us to an engineered beach,” Henry said.

Town Council agreed this spring on four criteria it will use to decide whether to try again to condemn the three easements. One is whether the Corps will alter the standard language of its easements. 

The property owners were asked to contact the Corps with their proposals. Henry said he expected they would have an answer from the Corps this week.