The most recent beach renourishment in Myrtle Beach occurred in 2009. Before that, it last happened in 1987 and 1997. The 1987 cost was approximately $5 million, but in 1997 and 2009, the price was around $17-18 million each time. For comparison, according to the DHEC website, North Myrtle Beach was last renourished in 2008 at a cost of around $10 million; Pawleys Island in 1999 for a cost of a little over $1 million; and Garden City and Surfside Beach, listed together, in 2008 for around $10 million.
As available federal funding for beach renourishment wanes and the cost of beach renourishment increases, beaches and oceanfront communities are having an increasingly difficult time finding the money to pay for beach renourishment. For instance, in 2014, Charleston’s newspaper, the Post and Courier, ran an article on Folly Beach having a difficult time finding funding to pay for expensive renourishment for eroding beach.
High levels of tourism in South Carolina negatively affect the natural process of beach migration in response to erosion because increased levels of infrastructure and buildings near the shore disrupt the natural processes of shoreline migration in response to changing sea levels. Increased levels of human traffic and activity also puts stress on natural resources and the environment. However, maintaining the beaches is important for tourism.
According to the 2008 NOAA evaluation of South Carolina’s Coastal Management Program, “One of the most significant concerns facing the state and local governments as they deal with emergency beach renourishment following storms and long-term, cyclical, planned beach maintenance is the high cost involved and the need for state funding to provide cost sharing for federal beach renourishment funding.”
In her 2016-2017 budget, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announced that she is proposing $40 million for renourishing South Carolina beaches. Pawleys Island in particular has experienced heavy erosion in the wake of recent storms, particularly Hurricane Joaquin. In early 2016, the town of Pawleys Island worked on “scraping” sand up the beach to rebuild dunes flattened by the heavy rains from the October 2015 hurricane at an estimated cost of $150,000, but no actual beach renourishment plans for Pawleys have been made public yet.
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