Beach Project to Start Nov. 1: Strand Renourishment to Take 14 Months
By Lorena Anderson, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Sep. 22–Take one football field, end zones included, and fill it full of 3 million cubic meters of sand. Then imagine that field is as tall as Chicago’s Sears Tower — 1,725 feet with its TV antenna.
That’s how much sand the Army Corps of Engineers said will be used to renourish eroded beaches along the Grand Strand starting Nov. 1.
Crews from Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. of Oak Brook, Ill., will work around the clock, grabbing and pumping sand from the ocean floor and placing it on area beaches, sculpting the shoreline.
The $29.5 million project will take 14 months. People will definitely notice the work, said Myrtle Beach Assistant City Manager Ron Andrews.
The drone of heavy equipment and the beeping of machinery backing up will become commonplace for a while.
“It’s like any other public works project,” Andrews said. “We just ask for people’s patience.”
Great Lakes’ crews can work on only a few hundred yards of beach at any one time, and the movable construction areas will be roped off and clearly marked.
“All people have to do is walk the other way a few hundred yards,” said Patrick O’Donnell, project manager with the Army Corps of Engineers Charleston District.
Work starts at the top of Georgetown County, and crews will move along 25 miles of coastline until they finish just north of Horry County in January 2009, O’Donnell said.
He estimated the crews will spend about 3 1/2 months in the Garden City Beach area, seven months in Myrtle Beach and about four months in North Myrtle Beach.
North Myrtle Beach, Myrtle Beach and Horry County are paying for $9.6 million of the project, and the rest is funded by the state and federal governments.
It has been nine years since the last renourishment project wrapped up, and O’Donnell said some areas need more rehab than others. For example, Cherry Grove, he said, has seen a lot of erosion in the past few years.
The Army Corps of Engineers actually designs the shoreline, telling the Great Lakes crews how high the sand should be and how it should slope.
People will be able to see the work as it happens.
“It looks like a thick milkshake at first,” O’Donnell said. “It’s a slurry. Then the water drains away and the sand settles, the sun bleaches it out, and before long it looks like it has always been there.”
Andrews said people often like to comb the revamped beaches for the new, interesting shells that turn up.
Great Lakes crews should start their work in Myrtle Beach in February, and city crews will work on stormwater pipes and sand-dune improvements as the dredging goes on to cause the fewest interruptions of people’s beach use.
The work is slated to continue moving northward through Myrtle Beach until next September when it should reach North Myrtle Beach.
Great Lakes administrators are scheduled to meet with Myrtle Beach officials next week, and Andrews said he hopes for a more specific timeline then.
——
At a glance Grand Strand’s $29.5 million, 14-month beach renourishment timeline:
Nov. 1 — Work begins in the Garden City Beach area.
February 2008 — Work expected to begin in Myrtle Beach.
September 2008 — Work expected to begin in North Myrtle Beach.
January 2009 — Project expected to be complete.
Contact LORENA ANDERSON at 444-1722 or landerson@thesunnews.com.
—–
To see more of The Sun News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.MyrtleBeachOnline.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.