Cabin owners seek beach renourishment project

Owners of private cabins in Hunting Island State Park are seeking public support for a new beach renourishment project that would add 400,000 cubic yards of sand to eroded areas on the island's coast over five years.

An $8.3 million renourishment and groin-installation project was completed in March at Hunting Island, but erosion has worsened near Cabin Road on the island's far south end over the past eight months. Park officials and the private cabin owners hope the new work will serve as a stopgap measure until a more permanent solution can be developed.

Two of the state-owned beach houses available for rent in the park were demolished this year due to structural damage caused by erosion, and several of the 22 private cabins that sit on land leased from the state are threatened. For that reason, the newly formed Hunting Island Beach Preservation Association, made up exclusively of leaseholders, is working to expedite the standard three- to six-month review period for such renourishment.

But according to Dan Burger, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, a decision is likely "at least three months" away.

Columbia-based Coastal Science & Engineering submitted the permit application for the new project on behalf of South Carolina's Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism last month.

The ocean and coastal resource management office and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers independently review such applications, and both agencies are accepting public comments on the project until Dec. 26.

The ocean and coastal resource management office has the final say on approving or denying the work because its permit decision supersedes the Corps of Engineers' determination, according to Burger.

Each agency receives input from other state and federal organizations -- including DHEC's Bureau of Water, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Natural Resources -- during the decision-making process.

Those agencies are not under the same time limitations as the public-comment period.

The work would not include any new construction of groins, which are sand-trapping, vertical structures built perpendicular to the beach. Six groins were installed in the last project -- none on the island's south end -- and some leaseholders say they have since lost up to 300 feet of beach in front of their cabins.

How to pay for the new work has not been determined.