The problem at Breach Inlet

By Joey Izzo

On the barrier islands of Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island, SC, the Army Corps has been hard at work dumping sand as part of a sand renourishment project at Breach Inlet since 2024. 

On the Sullivan’s Island side of the inlet, the Post and Courier reported the town spent $646,000 to spread last February an amount of sand equaling 20,000 dump trucks. 

But following a nor’easter that struck in mid-October, half of that sand had been washed away – along with all the money sunk into it.

If you have recently strolled along the sands of any beach along the East Coast, you may have noticed this problem, with an estimated 80 to 90 percent of beaches along the coast affected.  

This alarming issue is no more evident than on the barrier islands in the Lowcountry. 

The culprit is beach erosion, a phenomenon influenced by rising sea levels and increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, all caused by climate change. 

Major erosion was first reported at Breach Inlet in 2019, and since then, the high-water line has retreated between 40 and 70 meters.  

There are many ways beach erosion can be combatted, such as with sea walls, groins, jetties, dune rebuilding, and sand renourishment/nourishment projects; some methods are more effective than others. 

The clock is ticking as city officials are grappling with how to deal with this faster-growing problem, with the major bout of erosion the inlet experienced from 2019 to 2024 resulting in the complete destruction of the frontal dune system and leaving nearby homes at risk of direct storm damage. 

Sand nourishment, although visually pleasant, is both a costly and temporary solution to beach erosion, causing experts to urge IOP city officials to act now to look at other solutions to combat it. 

With no end to sea level rise and risk of hurricanes in sight, both city officials and residents are concerned for the uncertain fate of Breach Inlet. 

What is beach erosion?

Beach erosion is the process of sand being carried away from beaches as a result of high sea levels, flooding, and strong waves –all increasing factors due to climate change. 

As global warming has led to increased water temperatures, glaciers and ice sheets have been melting – leading to both rapid sea level rise and an increase in the number and severity of extreme weather events like hurricanes.

With the rise in sea level and increase in hurricanes, the resulting higher tides, flooding, and stronger waves, have been the perfect recipe for beach erosion.

Even without climate change factors, beaches will naturally experience cycles of accretion and erosion on durations of days and years. Breach Inlet is currently on an erosional cycle, and its notorious shifting channels have also exacerbated the erosion process, with currents so strong that a city ordinance bars visitors from swimming in the inlet. 

“You're pushing the whole Atlantic Ocean into this very narrow point when the tide is rushing in,” said Sullivan’s Island Director of Resilience and Natural Resource Management Rebecca Fanning. “Just thinking about the force of the ocean twice a day coming in that narrow channel, I mean, that's a lot of power that can move a lot of sand.”

Options to combat erosion

So the Lowcountry’s barrier islands have been utilizing various methods to combat extreme erosion – each with various pros and cons. 

Beach nourishment, the method IOP and Sullivan's are currently using, is the process of dredging sand from either an offshore or inland site and pumping it onto a beach experiencing erosion, creating a wider and higher beach to protect against storms. 

This is the least invasive method of combating beach erosion, but it is also the most temporary, as seen with the sand on Sullivan’s in October. 

Dune rebuilding also replaces lost sand, but rather than pumping sand onto the beach, it fortifies the area with vegetation and fencing. This is the most environmentally friendly route to combating erosion, but it is much slower and, in extreme cases, could require tearing beachfront homes down to make space for newly built dunes, as seen in Rodanthe, NC. 

Seawalls are solid walls, usually concrete, built parallel to the shore between the beach and the mainland to protect inland areas from waves and erosion.

Seawalls are permanent structures built to last against heavy erosion, but will increase erosion in areas directly beside the ends of the wall. They are also costly and what many consider to be an eyesore. 

Groins are permanent structures made of solid material like armorstone or blocks of concrete that are built perpendicular to the shoreline, and used to capture sand transported by the longshore current.

Groins are also built to the last, but directly restrict sand distribution to the area down-drift of the structure, leading to a need for multiple groins to line a beach in order to prevent further erosion. 

Jetties are very similar to groins but are placed in pairs adjacent to tidal inlets and harbors, and are usually larger and longer in size.

Jetties also have the potential to harm natural sediment flow downdrift of the structure, just like groins, with nearby barrier island Folly Beach suffering major erosion as a result of the Charleston Harbor jetties. 

Islands’ current approach to fighting erosion 

In order to combat the issue of erosion, both the city of Isle of Palms and the town of Sullivan’s Island have enacted sand renourishment projects along the inlet. The Army Corps of Engineers finished sand renourishment on the Sullivan’s Island side in February and has since been renourishing the IOP side.

While the Army Corps moved the sand onto the two beaches for free, the barrier islands have had to pay to have the sand shaped. 

“We've done a big beach renourishment in 2008 and in 2018, and we were assuming we could hold out until 2028, you know, a 10-year cycle on these things,” said Isle of Palms mayor Phillip Pounds. “But given the erosion that was happening at Breach Inlet and in Wild Dunes, we knew we needed to accelerate that.”

For some residents with homes at risk of being washed away, sand renourishment is not a viable solution. At a recent IOP city council meeting, residents voiced these concerns and urged city officials to look into other long-term solutions to protect the inlet. 

“Some of the residents in that area down at Ocean Boulevard near Breach Inlet have also paid to have a consultant come in and give some recommendations on what they think could be done,” said Isle of Palms city council member Rusty Streetman. “We heard a presentation by a company that was recommending that we take a look at a number of different things, and one of them being a terminal groin that would be attached to the end of the island at Breach Inlet.”

Some city officials were not too open to the idea of building a permanent structure at the inlet, with hesitation that downdrift erosion would worsen the situation.

“The city is not a big proponent of those things,” said Isle of Palms city council member Blair Hahn. “Because every time you build a groin, it might help one particular property owner, but it's to the expense of another one.”

Other city officials were aware of the temporary nature of sand renourishment and the increasing need for more sand in shorter cycles as a result of accelerated erosion.

“That's going to be a relatively short fix as well,” said Pounds. “Two of them have lasted 10 years; this last one is only going to last maybe eight years, so that's why we started the permitting process earlier.”

One Isle of Palms resident, who has been entrenched in a highly controversial legal battle over property rights, took matters into his own hands when he built an unauthorized seawall for his home on the inlet. A judge recently overturned his own ruling against the wall, allowing it to stay and rescinding the fines.

“Seawalls really are not even permitted in that area right there, as far as I'm concerned, by the Department of Environmental Services,” said Streetman. “If you build a sea wall on a property and you don't have a continuous seawall, then it can scour and make erosion worse on the adjoining properties.”

Isle of Palms city officials have stated that they are open to other solutions but insist on continuing with sand renourishment, with the next project slated for early 2027. 

“You're limited on what you can do in South Carolina as far as hard structures,” said Pounds. “We've had conversations about what else we can be doing, whether it’s a hard structure or a groin, but right now we're focused on, ‘let's get this beach renourishment project permitted.’”

Despite the alarming amount of sand lost in October, Sullivan’s Island has fared better than the Isle of Palms, according to city officials. 

“We're lucky we don't have the same pressures as Isle of Palms,” said Fanning. “Because the Army Corps was initiating this project to help out Isle of Palms, Sullivan's decided to take advantage of that; we wouldn't have necessarily initiated a project, it wasn't dire.”

Fanning says they expected a high tide to eventually grab much of the new sand dumped at the inlet, but they were not concerned about a total loss. Whether they expected it to happen as soon as eight months after the sand nourishment project was completed is unclear.

“It's concerning when overnight you see a big chunk of soil missing, so it has been very nerve-wracking for residents on that island to witness storm impacts or even just a really high tide or a windy day,” said Fanning. ”But structurally, none of these homes have been imperiled thus far.”

Public or private property?

The illegal seawall that was built by a resident has also sparked a larger debate among residents regarding the sand nourishment efforts: protecting public property vs. private property at the beach.

“The State law lets you start doing emergency work when the water is within 20 feet of a structure,” says Pounds. “We can only kick in once water gets that close to a house or a pool.”

Both the Isle of Palms and Sullivan’s Island encourage residents to get their own permits through the Department of Environmental Services to put up sandbags, scrape their own sand, and even rebuild their own dunes with vegetation. Only permanent structures, such as seawalls, are not permitted.

“Before the last two years, the city rarely did emergency work,” said Pounds. “It was really up to the homeowners to protect their property.”

Mayor Pounds believes the city, by undergoing sand renourishment at the inlet, is protecting public property.

“About public versus private, we're protecting an asset, and that asset is the beach; it's not someone's home necessarily,” said Pounds. “If they feel strongly that they're in peril or that they want to do something more than what the city is doing, then they are allowed to do that. Yes, there are houses in front of where we happen to be working and doing some things, but we're really trying to protect this seven-mile-long barrier island.” 

Council member Hahn recognized the complexity of the argument and how it’s never been tested fully in front of the Supreme Court.

“One side of it is that it's public property and we're protecting that for the public,” Hahn said. ”The other side is the beach really doesn't need protection, the beach is going to be the beach regardless. 

Hahn agreed that it’s not completely clear whether sand renourishment is protecting the public beach or actually the private property of homeowners on the beach.

“To say that we're using it to protect the beach may, in fact, not be a sound argument, and we are, in fact, using it to protect private property,” he said. “That question has to be answered, and until that question is answered, I don't know that there's going to be a lot of support for city council to spend tremendous amounts of money on this type of erosional issue.”

Why sand renourishment?

Groins, which were used at the inlet over 25 years ago and are currently buried, seem to be looked down upon by city officials on the Isle of Palms, mainly due to it’s capacity to change the appearance of the beaches. 

“That's going to be a real decision point for the city council, because that would really change the look of our beach and our island,” said Pounds. “Do we want to dot our island with groins like Folly, to try to do something different, other than just beach renourishment? That will definitely be a decision point for the next city council that will get sworn in.”

Officials over at Sullivan’s are also tentative to use groins, with more concern over their erosional side effects. 

“When we look at the groin issues, a lot of these were installed a very long time ago,” said Fanning. “It's great for adding sand on this side of the groin, but then it erodes on the other side and causes issues for the homes downstream; it's not something that the town encourages or would pursue itself.”

Mayor Pounds is open to the idea of using permanent structures like groins if it will aid in the longevity and costs of the slated 2027 sand nourishment project. 

“Could you put in some structures that may take those 10-year cycles to 15-year cycles?” said Pounds. “The project we’ll do in 2027 is going to be close to a $30 million project, so it's very expensive; that's all on us.” 

He mentions, along with other city officials, that the city gets very little state funding for beach repair projects, a factor driving the decision to use beach renourishment as opposed to other solutions that may cost more.

“You know, every now and then we get some state help,” said Pounds. “But primarily, that's on this city.”

Before work started on the Army Corps’ nourishment project on the Isle of Palms earlier this year, the city had been deploying sandbags and scraping as temporary relief for the inlet’s erosion over the last two years. Pounds estimated that this cost the city between $3-3.5 million.

“The Army Corps project at breach inlet to move some of that sand around was probably only about $400,000,” said Pounds. “Quite honestly, it really was not bad in the grand scheme of things.”

More viable and long-term solutions are unlikely 

There has been unease among IOP city officials over how effective the current sand nourishment project will prove to be. 

“How beneficial is it really going to be to the island?” said Pounds. “I think we are not going to know that this year or next year, or maybe for a little while to see how Mother Nature, you know, puts it out there.”

While beach nourishment is seemingly effective in the short term, it can be very harmful in the long run. The false sense of security that nourishment projects give developers has led to the beachfront homes on the inlet being built on previously eroded zones, as Streetman explained, which has led to the problem we have today.

“Many years ago, there was no building allowed on the area of the beach seaward of Ocean Boulevard,” said Streetman. “Once the land accreted to the point that the company that owned the property decided to sell that property and allow building there.”

Streetman describes how, after a lengthy process and lawsuits, people were eventually allowed to start building in that area on IOP.

“Having lived here since 1984 and seeing all the setbacks that were allowed where homes could be built very close to the beach and have great offsets from Ocean Boulevard probably negatively affected those properties,” said Streetman. “Because once we started having the erosion from that side of the inlet eating away at the beach, it has threatened a number of houses between Breach Inlet and all the way up to around the 800 to 900 block of Ocean Boulevard.”

Council member Hahn believes that the best thing to do to stop the threat of more homes being at risk is to halt development in these erosional areas.

“Stopping developers from developing in areas that we know are accretional and erosional on a cycle, both at the west end and east end of the Isle of Palms,” said Hahn. “It is Wild Dunes and at Breach Inlet, both areas that are currently hot spots, are areas that have had erosion and accretion for my entire lifetime.”

With beach nourishment’s temporary nature, coupled with its costly cycle and false sense of security, the quest for other viable methods to combat erosion remains. 

Dune rebuilding with vegetation and fencing would be a more natural and long-term solution to combating erosion compared to sand nourishment, while staying visually appealing.

“The sand fencing method is a lot slower but more natural and a lot less expensive or disruptive,” said Fanning. 

But the chances of a large-scale dune rebuilding project on the Isle of Palms are unlikely. 

“We're not going to be in a situation much like they have in the Outer Banks up there, where homes are falling into the ocean and you have to go in and either buy the property or condemn the property or whatever, and then rebuild the dunes that way,” said Streetman. “That's not something that we've really discussed, nor do I think it would be something we would do.”

The Isle of Palms appears to be committed to continuing its sand nourishment projects. 

“A beach renourishment, a big-scale offshore beach renourishment is the only thing that's going to fix it,” said Pounds.

Pounds added that they did get a second opinion in October, but they won't take it up until after the holidays. 

Before the report came in, Streetman said he was looking forward to other potential solutions being considered. 

“To see if there's anything you know that comes out of that opinion that we can consider that would be cost-effective and something that would be beneficial for not only our residents that live close by, but also our visitors that visit our beaches on a regular basis,” said Streetman.

As tensions rise between city officials and residents, and as the promise of more extreme storms, such as the nor’easter in October, looms, the city will continue to address the threat of beach erosion for many years to come. 

“You just have to pay attention to nature and hopefully not get in the way when nature is moving,” said Hahn, who added that that's “just the facts” of living on a barrier island. “In my house, we're set up that if a hurricane comes, we lock the door, we leave, and if everything is washed away, well, that's the price you pay for where you get to live.”