The contractor was ready to start hauling sand, a grant from the state had been approved and work was within weeks of beginning on a project aimed at protecting Isle of Palms properties that back up to the beach near Breach Inlet.
All that changed the night of Aug. 30, when the remnants of Hurricane Idalia skimmed past the Carolina coast and brought the Atlantic Ocean a little closer to the few dozen homes between 100 and 314 Ocean Blvd.
According to IOP City Administrator Desiree Fragoso, plans to have a contractor haul in approximately 6,400 cubic yards of sand to build a 6-foothigh, 20-foot-wide, 1,450-foot-long dune from 114 to 304 Ocean Blvd. have been scrapped because those properties and several others are now within 20 feet of where the beach erosion begins. Instead, the dunes will be restored by scraping the beach, which the state allows under emergency conditions. Trucking in sand was the city’s only option prior to Idalia’s arrival. Work was scheduled to get underway Sept. 1 on an area of the beach from 100 to 314 Ocean Blvd.
The project originally was expected to cost the city approximately $250,000, with South Carolina Parks and Recreation reimbursing IOP for around half that amount under the Beach Renourishment Funding Assistance Grant Program. Fragoso said Aug. 31 that the revised project would probably have a similar price tag, “maybe more because there’s also going to be debris removal.” She added that she wasn’t sure if the city would still be able to benefit from the state grant.
The original project, approved by the IOP City Council June 27, hit a snag when only five of 21 homeowners agreed to give the city a permanent easement on their property – and two of them later withdrew their approval. Fragoso told Council members at their Aug. 22 meeting that city staff pivoted to a two year easement to move the project forward.
“We worked with our attorneys. We worked with several coastal experts in crafting a position that would protect the city, that could help us complete a project down there and agreed on a temporary two-year easement,” she said. “Our attorneys are comfortable with that. We believe that there is more risk in not doing a project than some of the risk associated and the administrative hurdles associated with not having permanent easements.”
She added that the Council should eventually adopt a concrete policy concerning beach restoration.
“I think this process highlighted a deficiency that we have,” she said. “Our goal is going to be once we get this project conducted to work with Council so we have a guideline and a blueprint of how we deal with situations like this because we do have a commitment to restoring and protecting the beach. We have a local beach management plan that establishes that according to state regulations. We are collecting funds for the purpose of restoring the beach, and I think it’s upon us to develop a plan moving forward.”
Fragoso said Aug. 31 that all but “two or three” of the original 21 landowners had agreed to the temporary two-year easement.
Plans are underway for a much larger Army Corps of Engineers plan that would bring nearly 500,000 cubic yards of sand to the Breach Inlet area of the IOP beach. The beneficial use project, which probably will be completed sometime next year, will also transport beach-quality sand previously dredged from the Intracoastal Waterway to Sullivan’s Island.
