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Most South Carolinians don’t have a dog in the Isle of Palms’ ongoing fight over whether to liberalize its seawall ordinance. But the debate at the very place where multimillion-dollar homes meet the public beach has been instructive in a state that’s grappling with whether to protect the broad public interest in the wide white beaches that feed our tourism industry or the narrow interests of property owners who sank millions of dollars into land that the sea is determined to reclaim.

Beaches on barrier islands by their very nature erode and accrete, so the only way to ensure that we have beaches over time is to let them do that, without any interference from seawalls or other artificial impediments.

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The 1988 Beachfront Management Act was designed to ensure that there’s dry beach to walk on, even at high tide, and to reduce erosion both to the public’s beach and to the unarmored property adjacent to the seawalls. It does this primarily by prohibiting the construction of new permanent erosion-control devices on the beach itself, which belongs to the public.

That law has come under increasing fire from some state legislators, as rising sea levels combine with the exploding values of oceanfront property to turn property owners into a powerful lobbying force at the Statehouse. So far Gov. Henry McMaster has blocked their efforts to gut the law and destroy our public beaches, but he won't be governor forever.

Editorials

The Isle of Palms has a zoning restriction that goes far beyond the state law, prohibiting seawalls within 250 feet of the high tide line, even when that’s farther inland than where the state’s jurisdiction ends. That restriction was put in place for aesthetic reasons, but the City Council’s refusal last week to liberalize it, even temporarily, spoke to the vital truth about seawalls and other hard erosion-control devices.

The council had adopted a temporary ordinance earlier this year that allowed some property owners to build seawalls and revetments 20 feet closer to the beach, as long as they didn’t violate state law. Also, an engineer had to certify that the structures wouldn’t increase beach erosion or harm a neighbor’s property.

No engineer was willing to do that, so last week, as The Post and Courier’s Anna Sharpe reports, Mayor Phillip Pounds proposed adopting a more liberal version of that emergency ordinance — this one without the engineer’s certification. Instead, the property owner merely would have to sign a release that ensured the city couldn’t be held legally responsible if the seawall damaged a neighbor’s property. That is, it would have allowed the city to wash its hands of the whole thing and left property owners on their own to sue their neighbors whose seawall destroyed their property.

Councilman Blair Hahn, like all the other council members and few state legislators, represents the owners of the multimillion-dollar homes who want to erect seawalls. His brief but eloquent objection should be required viewing for all state legislators. (Start the July 23 council meeting at 1 hour, 50 minutes in.)

“We as a government are charged with protecting the residents, to a reasonable degree,” he said. “We can’t protect some residents to the potential detriment of others." Read that second sentence again, because it's crucial.

Mr. Hahn noted that the city tried to eliminate that problem earlier in the year by requiring an engineer to certify that a seawall wouldn’t hurt neighboring properties. “No engineer would do that, because we all know that a wall will in fact hurt neighboring properties in an erosional event, because you have the backwash on both sides,” he said. “And so I can’t support giving protection to one resident at the expense of neighboring residents.”

Once you accept the basic physics — and Mr. Hahn reminded the council that it had voted earlier in that same meeting to foot the bill for a temporary sandbag seawall without any breaks in it because the city’s own consultant said breaks would allow backwash — it’s hard to argue with the reasoning or the morality behind his position.

As Councilwoman Katie Miars put it: “I don’t see how we can pass something that … most likely will do harm to some adjacent property owners.”

Editorials

It was a popular sentiment: The ordinance needed six votes to be adopted; it got only three — and five "no" votes.

Property owners always have the right to sue a neighbor who damages their property — whether that’s from a tree that falls onto their roof or a seawall that channels rushing water onto their property and undermines their foundation. But in many cases it's reasonable for government to prohibit those actions it knows will harm innocent victims.

Editorials

And the general public has far less opportunity to sue; we have to rely on government to protect our right to the dry sandy beaches with which nature blessed so much of South Carolina’s coast.

The Legislature has provided that protection since 1988. It must continue to do so.

Editor's note: This editorial has been corrected from an earlier version, which said the Isle of Palms ordinance prohibits seawalls 250 feet landward of the high tide line; that was supposed to say seaward.

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ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCSC) - The City of Isle of Palms is using $1.25 million of earmarked state budget money to make drainage pipe improvements and new installations along one flooding-prone road.

City officials say Palm Boulevard is one of the main roads across the island, and on a rainy day or even during a king tide, it can become impassable.

“We’ve got probably another 50-ish million dollars’ worth of drainage projects kind of on the shelf, if you will. We’ve done an island-wide drainage study so we kind of know the next 10 projects we need to be working on and kind of in the next hotspots,” Mayor Phillip Pounds says.

Pounds says the 3700 and 3800 blocks of Palm Boulevard are key to take care of next. The town is currently going through the permitting process to replace old drainage pipes and lay some new ones. He expects the project to be about $1.5 million and the state funding will cover most of the cost.

“This will be a little bit of both new infrastructure as well as replacing some smaller pipe system because a lot of it’s old. A lot of it may be undersized for the growth to happen on the island and particularly where you’ve had so many small houses torn down and big houses put up. You know some of those pipes were built a number of years ago for the size island we were at the time,” Pounds says.

In the application for state funding, the city explains this neighborhood is lower than surrounding areas and the existing stormwater system is inadequate at draining during significant rain events. The result is impassable roads and property damage. The solution involves replacing undersized pipes.

“There will be construction in 2025 would be my best guess at this point. If we can get the permits in fairly quickly, again, a year-long process to get approval on those permits and easement issues. We need to take care of it,” Pounds says.

It’s one of many projects, both recently completed and on the to-do list. Pounds says the city is always thinking of where to begin permitting and pursuing funding so the timing lines up so that they can address hotspots like Palm Boulevard.

“We just finished three big drainage projects in the last 12 months and those are really fixing the outfall, if you will also on the backside of the island. So, kind of creating, you know the flow to get water off the island as fast as we can into the intercoastal or to the creek system,” Pounds says.

Another hotspot area is Carolina, 2nd, 20th, 21st, 27th and 28th Avenues. It’s an area Pounds says he has his eye on, already thinking of what grants and funding could pay for improvements. Improvements like installing tide valves and outfall structures on the backside of the island to seal high tides from inundating the interior of the island.

Island leaders note the city is experiencing more frequent sunny day flooding due to the more frequent high tides and this flooding is causing tidal water to run into roadways and into yards.

“So, our Public Works staff does a great job on the day-to-day maintenance of the ditches and the pipes and everything but there’s just some bigger infrastructure that we need to put in place and that $50 million number, that’s sitting on the shelf,” Pounds says.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCSC) - The Isle of Palms is getting $1 million in state budget funding for beach renourishment that leaders say they plan to use to build up Breach Inlet and do shoal work from Dewees Island.

The city applied for $2.5 million estimating the restoration projects forecast for the next 10-15 years, including shoal management and large-scale offshore dredging, will exceed $30 million. The $2.5 million request would cover the construction costs of a shoal and inlet management project and engineering costs for long-term sand sources. The state earmarked $1 million for this year.

“We’re grateful for anything from the state budget standpoint,” Isle of Palms Mayor Phillip Pounds says. “The state doesn’t have a funding mechanism for beach renourishment, so that was part of our reason for asking for the number.”

The city is already anticipating an Army Corps of Engineers renourishment sand dump for Breach Inlet in September 2024.

“The Army Corps will dump that sand on our beach, and it’s about 500,000 cubic yards, or about $10 million of free sand, if you will. Great. Again, we’re grateful for that, and then we’ll spend a half million to shape it,” Pounds says.

Once the Army Corps drops the sand, it will be up to the town to use it to build the beach. Half a million of the incoming state funding will go to cover the beach and dune shaping. The other half a million, Mayor Pounds hopes will go toward some shoal work on the other end of the island. The town is waiting on permit approval for the shoal management project.

“So there’s a huge stand bar coming from Dewees south and moving into the Isle of Palms, so it’s not quite attached yet. It’s relatively close, so we will use that sand, probably another million or so dollar project on its own, once that attaches, we’ll help Mother Nature along and pull some of that sand onto the island and re-shape the dune and re-shape the beach,” Pounds says.

Pounds says the north-end shoal project does depend on permit approval. He hopes to get that project done in late 2024 or 2025. Pounds says these projects are the small versions that carry the island through between large off-shore dredging.

“We have a huge beach renourishment, anticipated project here in 2027 2028 that’s probably in the $20 million time frame. That’s the big ticket item,” Pounds says.

Pounds calls the funding for these projects the literal million-dollar question. He says as a town with an annual budget of $25 million it can be a challenge to manage the beach, and leaders are looking far and wide for funding solutions.

“You have different hot spots over the course of time as cycles ebb and flow, and it’s really about using the shoal management, using the Army Corps project, using the next big renourishment project. I mean it’s a log of pieces that go into managing a seven-mile beach. You really have to be creative in your funding and your timing,” Pounds says.

So far, they are using the Army Corps project, the shoal, and the state funding to their advantage using planning and timing. But without a set state department or bank of funds designated for the beaches, it can be hard to secure.

“We’ve had an ad-hoc committee going, it’s some residents, some council members, for looking at beach preservation specifically, and part of that is coming up with renewable, ongoing funding. And that’s still a work in progress,” Pounds says.

He says the town will continue to ask for what they need from the state, rely on FEMA when it comes to impact from named storms, and pursue grants. They are also looking at a variety of at-home options, like a tax district on the island that could funnel directly into beach returns.

“So we are going to be as aggressive as we can. You know, whether it’s state, federal or other grant funding that’s out there available,” Pounds says.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (WCIV) — Beach erosion is an issue for many beach communities across the East Coast and a pressing matter on the Isle of Palms.

The Isle of Palms, like other low country beaches, is working to combat erosion.

"We're one storm away from losing a lot of homes," saysDan Slotchiver, a member of the Isle of Palms Beach Preservation Committee.

READ MORE | "Isle of Palms to use shoal management for beach upkeep, project starts this winter."

"We're coming up with a very potentially dangerous hurricane season, and we've already got homes that are much closer to the sand than our studies and our findings on this committee show to be safe," adds Slotchiver.

A plan is in place to add 500 thousand cubic yards of sand this summer, during the height of hurricane season. The committee is looking for stop-gap measures between renourishment projects.

"One of the things we try to come up with, and we're still fine-tuning, is what is the optimal beach? What level do we want to have sand up to safely, where if it gets below that level, we have to step in"

READ MORE | "Isle of Palms Cleanup Crew plans beach litter sweeps for busy Fourth of July week."

Triggers for sand recycling projects when displacement reaches a certain level during the year are one suggestion, along with beach monitoring surveys twice a year.

"The idea of the committee is to figure out a way to be more proactive, to create triggers so that when things happen, we can respond quicker, and we can have patches we can put into place until we can have a new reimbursement," adds Slotchiver.

But new plans inevitably come at a cost. For example, a renourishment every ten years saves almost 15 million dollars compared to every eight years but offers less protection.

"Ideally we would get community funds from other counties. We'd get community funds or state funds contributing, because a large part of the beach generates tourism, and tourism brings a lot of money to the community and brings a lot of money to the state. But at this point, it doesn't exist. There are no funds to be coming in to support, so we're on our own," adds Slotchiver.