Posted on May 19, 2025
Math question: How much beach sand is 2.2 million cubic yards?
Answer: Enough to cover 344 entire football fields with three 3 feet of sand.
Announced today is a more precise timeline and phases for Hilton Head’s upcoming 2025-26 beach renourishment project with the $47 million project adding 2.2 million cubic yards of sand the island’s beaches from August 2025 to May 2026. The new details emerged as the town announced it finalized a bid for the project contractor.
Beach renourishment, which occurs about every eight years on Hilton Head, widens the beach and replaces sand lost to natural erosion processes. The source of the sand is from the nearby ocean floor just beyond the shorebreak so the equipment used will be visible to residents and visitors while the work is being done.
The project is divided into three phases
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Phase 1 includes Port Royal, Fish Haul and Pine Island. It will begin in August 2025 at Pine Island and will end at Port Royal in November 2025. While the actual nourishment begins in August, the contractor will begin setting up in July.
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Phase 2 includes Central Island, South Island and South Beach. This phase will start in November 2025 at Central Island Beach and end in May 2026 at South Beach.
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The third phase of the project includes installing breakwater structures at Pine Island. The exact dates for that construction are not yet finalized, though it’s likely to occur at some point in 2026.
External factors can certainly lead to changes in this schedule, which is still preliminary, according to a statement from the town. The town’s last beach renourishment project was planned to begin in Feb. 2016, but contractor delays pushed back the project to June 2016.
The beaches will remain open during beach renourishment, with the execption of the 1,000 foot section occupied by the construction. The dredging equipment and bulldozers move down the beach at a rate of about 300 feet each day, according to a press release by the town.
When the town first began discussing the beach renourishment schedule, they estimated that construction would begin in June. The timeline of the project was pushed back due to town negotiations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding dog restrictions on Fish Haul Beach. The project’s biological opinion issued by the FWS required that the town ban dogs from a section of Fish Haul Beach in order to protect nesting shorebirds.
Negotiations between the town and the federal agency regarding the dog ban set the project back a few months. Ultimately, those conversations led to a smaller section of dog-free beach than what the FWS initially requested.
