Posted on March 17, 2025
In response to numerous citizens’ concerns that the recent dredging project did not provide any benefits to their properties, the Sunset Beach Town Council moved to table its vote on accepting the preliminary assessment role that calls for charging the 321 affected property owners $7,710.31 each to cover the town’s $ $2,475,010.97 share of the $7,681,194.15 project.
The town reported the total actual project cost was $7,681,194.15, less than the November 2022 estimate of $8,352,172.65 when the mechanical dredging contract was awarded to R.E. Goodson Construction Company Inc, out of Darlington, South Carolina.
The town received $5,235,134.18 in grant funds from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund.
So, the town had to provide $2,446,059.97 in matching funds plus another $28,951 for costs outside the dredging fund prior to receival of the grant for a total of $2,475,010.97, per the agenda item. The town match has been split among the 321 properties affected by the dredging, breaking down to $7,710.31 per property.
The project, which was initially started in 2012, faced numerous delays due largely to citizens who opposed the project working to halt it.
Mayor Pro Tem John Corbett said the dredging project started as a maintenance project “and then switched to a navigation project.” Town Administrator Lisa Anglin said that was “due to the grant funding that came became available.”
“The council at that point chose to make it a navigation project instead of a maintenance project,” Anglin said. “In addition, South Jinks and the bay have never been dredged, so they were not maintenance projects.”
The mechanical dredging project, which was managed by Moffatt & Nichol, occurred between November 2021 and March 2024, when it was completed
Anglin said, “Initially, the project was only permitted to a depth of minus 2 feet mean low water, but the town applied for and received a variance from the Coastal Resources Commission to permit a dredge depth to minus 5 feet mean low water.”
“The dredge project included the navigation of water of South Jinks Creek, the Bay area, the feeder channel, the four finger canals and Mary’s and Turtle Creeks on the mainland,” the town administrator added.
The town council last Monday was set to confirm the preliminary assessment roll that outlines the 321 property owners who owe the $7,710.31 to the town, but numerous affected property owners turned out to share concerns about the project’s lack of benefit to them.
Ed and BJ Huggins, of 6th Street, said their property is located at the furthest west finger canal, referred to as Canal A.
“We were expecting the dredging project to deepen the canal so that our dock would be able to float at all tides and would still open the end of the canal for a safer and better boating area,” Ed Huggins said. “But it appears that the dredging did not deepen the canal for our property and that the dredging occurred at just a few feet in the middle of the canal at our end.”
The project, as a result, has provided “minimum improvement” to the Huggins’ property, Huggins added.
Ignacio Marino, resident of Riverside Drive, which borders the canal, said the dredging process for the navigational project, as he observed it, was “orthodox and inconsistent in the application, not to mention inefficient.”
“This has resulted in my opinion in canal navigational depth apparently being up to two feet in variance in spots as I navigate out,” Marino said. “Jinks Creek remains largely non-navigational anytime near low tide. There remain multiple hazards for running aground whether on a motorboat or on a kayak.”
Marino also expressed concerns with the town’s per parcel assessment that is irrespective of “the linear feet or the amount of work time spent near our property.”
“In fact, the proposal appears to adversely penalize small lot owners through application of a per parcel assessment rather than by linear feet,” he said. “Large lot owners are therefore benefiting at the expense of a typical 50-foot lot owner.”
Steve Britt, resident of Stokes Drive along Turtle Creek, said the project lacks consistency, adding he cannot even get a jet-ski out of the creek at low tide despite the dredging.
“I don’t mind, I’ll pay $10,000 if you’ll fix it right,” Britt said. “But I don’t believe in paying for something that’s not done right. I don’t see how you could even charge somebody — I mean, go out there and measure it.”
Susan Gentry, a Shoreline Drive E. resident whose property also fronts Turtle Creek, echoed Britt’s sentiment, noting her property also did not benefit and her dock remains unusable. “I’ve never paid for something that I know of that I didn’t get any benefit from, and I don’t intend to change that,” she said. “So, we got to work on this.”
Mayor Pro Tem Corbett said “all of the concerns and complaints” shared with the council during the March 3 meeting “were also in the letters” the council has received from citizens regarding the assessment.
Corbett asked Anglin what the town can do to address the complaints the contractor did not do an adequate job because residents’ docks remain in the mud and navigational issues persist.
“With utilizing grant funds from the state, we had to stay in the public area of all of the bodies of water,” Anglin said. “We were not allowed to go within 10 feet of docks. In addition, CAMA would not allow us to go within 5 feet of docks and 10 feet of marsh grass. … I am not aware of a grant available for maintenance dredging under docks which CAMA and the Army Corps [of Engineers] consider basically private property — still in public waters, but basically private property.”
The council ultimately voted to table the acceptance of the preliminary assessment roll. “I’ll make a motion to table it to, to the best of our ability, look into concerns, get with our engineers and see what happens,” Councilman Mike Hargreaves said.
Corbett asked Anglin what recourse the town has to potentially address residents’ concerns. “I don’t know,” Anglin said in response. “We need to go into those conversations before I’ll be able to state in public what would be happening, if anything.”
Anglin added that the permitting agencies are not responsible “for how [the dredging] was done.”
“They tell us the standards, the company has to provide those standards and we go through that,” she said. “They tell us where we can dredge, where we cannot dredge, they hold us to that.”
This is a developing story. The Brunswick Beacon will continue reporting updates on this story as new information is gathered.
