Posted on May 26, 2025
A project to pump sand onto Carolina and Kure beaches was supposed to happen this winter, but rising costs mean it will now only start in the fall after the upcoming hurricane season
A year later than expected, the sandman is finally coming to Pleasure Island.
After the project was buffeted by financial headwinds last year, the Army Corps of Engineers’ Wilmington District announced recently that the beach nourishment for Carolina and Kure beaches will finally move forward this winter.
The federal agency announced it has signed a $23.52 million contract with Norfolk Dredging Co. for the project, which will take place during the upcoming fall-winter dredging window. Work on beaches and in many cases dredging of coastal waters is only allowed to take place during the colder months to protect nesting sea turtles and shorebirds.
“Securing a contractor for this critical project proved challenging due to dredging availability in Fiscal Year 2025,” stated a corps’ release. “Following unsuccessful bidding earlier in the fiscal year, (the army corps) and its partners are pleased to announce this award for Fiscal Year 2026.”
Unlike state and local fiscal years, the federal fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.
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‘The most logical decision’
Beach nourishment is inherently expensive, requiring lots of pre-project planning and permit work and then securing an acceptable sand source that can be pumped onto a beach. If that borrow site is farther away than say a nearby inlet, like Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach mine for their projects, it will cost more to move the sand from the source to the beach.
But another factor that’s helping send the cost of beach nourishment surging is the high demand for projects to rebuild beaches all along the Gulf and East coasts battered by recent hurricanes and the few number of American companies out there in the dredging business. By federal law, domestic dredging and nourishment work has to be undertaken by U.S. companies.
With prices coming in well above predictions, some Cape Fear-area beach towns saw their projects for this past winter wash away − at least temporarily. That’s what happened with the project for Carolina and Kure beaches.
The Pleasure Island project had an estimated cost of just under $20 million. But the only bid for the work the Army Corps of Engineers received came in at $37.5 million.
“Getting additional bidders are slim and since the price was double the estimated project cost, the best possible solution is to postpone the event until next year,” said Kure Beach Mayor Allen Oliver in a letter to residents. “We should get better pricing and more bidders participating.”
The delay means the two New Hanover beach towns will have to weather the 2025 hurricane season without a fresh injection of sand − a worry for officials and residents in a world where climate change is increasingly fueling stronger and bigger tropical storm systems.
Hurricane season starts June 1 and runs through November, and hurricane forecast prognosticators are predicting an above-normal level of storm activity.
“This is not the most favorable situation for us and Carolina Beach, but honestly it is the most logical decision based on the lack of bidders and the cost of the single bid received,” Oliver said in his letter.
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Finding sand dollars
Another factor that can limit the feasibility of coastal towns engaging in nourishment projects to rebuild their battered beachfront can be the feasability − or willingness − of communities and in many cases states to shoulder the cost.
That can become a heated issue when many see nourishment projects as only benefiting oceanfront property owners and that the work needs to be done every several years to be truly effective and offer protection, since erosion is a natural process that’s only been increasing in recent years due to rising seas and increased storm activity. While federal and state funds often help fund beach projects, moves to rein in federal spending by President Trump and tightening state budgets has made future funding support questionable at best.
While towns like North Topsail Beach have halted some proposed nourishment work due to financial constraints and towns like Surf City and Oak Island are grappling with major costs to fund their planned beach projects, that isn’t an issue for New Hanover County’s three beach towns.
New Hanover uses proceeds from the county’s room-tax, a special tax on hotel and short-term rentals, to help fund beach projects. North Carolina also has been a reliable funding partner for the three towns’ federal beach projects, which generally take place every three years.
According to corps and county officials, the cost-share of the Carolina Beach portion of the project is 50% federal, 25% county, and 25% state. In Kure Beach, the break down is 65% federal, with New Hanover and Raleigh splitting the remaining 35%.
Sand for Brunswick beaches
The Pleasure Island project isn’t the only dredging project that will benefit local beaches recently completed or announced by the corps.
The agency in late April wrapped up work in Brunswick County on dredging Lockwood Folly River where it crosses the Intracoastal Waterway. Sand removed from the inlet was pumped onto the western end of Oak Island, where the beach has been several eroded by recent storms and the nearby inlet and several homes have been relying on sandbags to protect them from the encroaching Atlantic.
Then in mid-May the corps announced a contract worth up to $25.3 million for the dredging of the Cape Fear River shipping channel near the mouth of the Cape Fear. The work is expected to result in up to 1.3 million cubic yards of sand getting pumped onto Caswell Beach and the eastern end of Oak Island.
As with the Pleasure Island project, the work will be undertaken by Norfolk Dredging and will take place over the upcoming fall-winter dredging window.
