The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Charleston District officially completed its $72 million Grand Strand renourishment project, and all beaches are fully reopened.
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The work began in North Myrtle Beach and slowly progressed down the coast to Garden City where it wrapped this month. Several delays pushed work into peak tourism season, but the project needed to be completed before hurricane season to ensure protection from storm surge.
“While the renourished beach provides an inviting shoreline for residents and visitors, coastal protection remains the primary goal of the federal project,” a press release from USACE said.
The project moved over 1.5 million cubic yards of sand to elevate eroding sections of the Grand Strand that were damaged from Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Debby. Both storms washed away sand from previous renourishment projects, exactly as designed, instead of washing out coastal infrastructure.
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The project was determined to be an “emergency renourishment,” and was fully funded by the Corps .
The amount of sand pumped from offshore borrow sites equated to nearly 155,000, 10-yard dump trucks, which would span from Charleston, South Carolina, to New York City if they were lined bumper to bumper.
The Army Corps Charleston District will monitor Grand Strand beaches to continue supporting coastal storm risk management and resilience along the South Carolina coast, a press release said.
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