Hunting Island beachgoers could see this big change next year

The biggest Beaufort County storm in decades tore sand from Hunting Island State Park’s beaches and left its most treasured pieces vulnerable.

Hurricane Matthew’s wake moved state park officials to almost double the scope of an already planned beach restoration project planned last year before the storm. In a new permit request, engineers plan to pump up to 1.2 million cubic yards of sand onto Hunting Island’s shoreline and build up to four new groins — hard structures that extend hundreds of feet into the ocean designed to trap and build up sand on the beach.

Most of the additional sand will target the north end of the island between the historic lighthouse and campground. A nearby parking lot is within feet of the water at high tide, and the lighthouse and nearby gift shop are also vulnerable.

The work is critical, state parks director Phil Gaines said.

“What makes it more critical, as anyone who goes to Hunting Island will know, you’ll see firsthand how vulnerable it is because of the loss of the dune system,” Gaines said. “We really need to protect this great resource we have.”

The proposed work would begin in early 2018 and is expected to cost about $10 million, which would be the priciest Hunting Island beach-restoration project and more than double the cost of the most recent work in 2006. The amount of sand to be added would be the most since 1980, when 1.4 million cubic yards were used.

Plans before Matthew called for up to 635,000 cubic yards of sand and two groins, about half of the current proposal.

A public notice of the new scope of work was published July 21. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will accept public comments for 15 days after the notice, and comments can be submitted to S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control for 30 days.

Hunting Island is one of the state’s most popular parks, with more than 1 million visitors during a fiscal year. And South Carolina has prioritized the barrier island’s constantly shifting beaches.

Eight previous beach-restoration projects on Hunting Island totaled $13.1 million, according to the state’s original permit request last year.

“It’s one of the most erosional beaches in the state, and it’s been that way for a long time,” Steven Traynum, a marine scientist and project manager with Coastal Science and Engineering, said during a public hearing on the proposed work in May 2016.

During that meeting, the proposed new groins — and the effect of the current ones — were the most hotly debated.

Hunting Island has six existing groins built as part of its most recent restoration project. Residents on Harbor Island to the north opposed the new groins, blaming the structures for erosion problems on their private beach.

The Coastal Conservation League also opposed the structures, citing research on accelerated erosion down the beach from the groins.

Coastal Science officials acknowledged in their permit request last year that sand built up in the Johnson Creek Inlet is keeping waves from pushing sand onto Harbor Island’s beach, but that the process is the result of natural changes occurring in many of the state’s similar inlets.

Monitoring since the most recent restoration project has shown the effects of the groins down the beach from the structures are limited to the areas just north of the groins, and don’t affect adjacent beaches, Coastal Science officials wrote in the permit request last year.

While up to four groins are sought in the current proposal, the most important, if money gets tight, will be one just north of the lighthouse, Gaines said. The new groin would serve to maintain the new sand and protect the nearby parking lot, gift shop and lighthouse.

The proposal includes two additional groins between the lighthouse and campground, and one between the north and south beaches. The structures would be made of interlocking steel or composite, and extend 400 to 450 feet into the water.

In addition to the extra sand going to the lighthouse area, the south beach was also severely eroded and will get a boost from the material dredged from an area of about 100 acres, two miles offshore.

Sea oats and sand fencing will help restore the dune system lost to the hurricane in October. A similar effort is helping rebuild dunes after Edisto Beach State Park’s major beach restoration earlier this year.

“Once you give Mother Nature a little lift, she responds real well,” Gaines said.

This story was originally published July 28, 2017 at 9:03 AM with the headline "Hunting Island beachgoers could see this big change next year."