COASTAL OBSERVER

A settlement between the town of Pawleys Island and property owners at Prince George will end a lawsuit over the town’s 2020 beach renourishment project and allow planning to move forward on a proposal to move Pawleys Inlet closer to where it was five years ago.

Town Council approved the terms of the settlement this week, agreeing to pay $150,000 toward the cost of the project. The town did not release the settlement agreement. Administrator Dan Newquist said that was on the advice of the attorney representing the town in suits brought by Prince George property owners.

Mayor Brian Henry said work on the terms has taken more than a year.

“There was compromise on both sides,” he said.

Bud Watts, who owns two oceanfront lots and 1,065 acres on the west side of Pawleys Creek at Prince George, said he was pleased with the agreement.

“We think it’s a win-win for both Pawleys Island and Prince George. Frankly, we’re just ready to focus on a solution and be good neighbors with our friends at Pawleys Island,” Watts said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

In 2020, the town completed a project that placed 1.1 million cubic yards of offshore sand on the beach from the south end parking lot to just beyond Second Street on the island’s north end. 

Pawleys Inlet, which separates the island from Prince George, began to migrate south. Watts and his wife, Melesa, filed suit in May 2022 after the inlet had reached their two oceanfront lots on the north end of Prince George.

Other property owners and the Prince George Community Association also filed suits as the inlet continued to move to the south. They argued that the sand added to the beach at Pawleys Island was the cause of the shift. The town has denied that.

The suits also named the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, now known as the Department of Environmental Services, which permitted the renourishment. They named the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, which funded a portion of the project, as well as the engineers who designed the renourishment and the dredging company that carried it out.

The suits in Circuit Court asked for an injunction ordering that the inlet be moved to its location before an earlier renourishment project in 2008 and that the beach and dunes at Prince George be restored.

The parties began working on a settlement in 2023. At the end of that year, the Prince George Community Association applied for federal and state permits to dredge a new inlet 400 feet south of the public parking lot. The application called for the dredged sand to be placed on the Prince George beachfront along with upland sand.

It also called for the creation of a 1,100-foot wide “management corridor” to limit the inlet’s future movement.

The lawsuits were put on hold during the settlement talks, but in January the Prince George owners asked a judge to let the case move forward. In a filing in May, a mediator, Thomas Wills, said the parties were at an impasse. But in a handwritten note, he added “the parties have mediated twice. Negotiations are ongoing. Progress is being made.”

The property south of the public parking lot is owned by members of the Graham family. The boundaries run from the creek to the ocean and to the high water mark of Pawleys Inlet, according to property records. Town Council gave final reading to an amendment to the town’s unified development ordinance this week that allows that property to be subdivided even though it doesn’t have frontage on a public street for  “a public use or purpose.” Officials acknowledged that change will allow for the creation of a new inlet.

While Henry said he couldn’t comment on the terms of the settlement at this time, he told the Pawleys Island Civic Association last summer that a key element would be the town’s ability to conduct future renourishment without objections from Prince George.

The Army Corps of Engineers is preparing a project to place more offshore sand on the island’s south end to replace sand lost to Hurricane Ian in 2022. 

The Corps has proposed starting that work in the winter.

The town is in the process of getting appraisals in order to condemn easements required by the Corps on three lots in the project area. It has 110 other easements.

Previous condemnation efforts were challenged in court.