Posted on July 21, 2025
A plan to place almost 700 Olympic-sized swimming pools full of sand on Hilton Head’s beaches has, in some ways, been decades in the making.
The large barge and the rest of the necessary equipment for the $47.5 million dollar beach renourishment are making their way down to Hilton Head. This year will the fifth time Hilton Head renourishes its beaches since the program started in 1990. While the schedule is finalized, harsh weather offshore can often delay these projects, especially during the winter months, Chris Creed, town consultant and senior coastal engineer at Foth-Olsen, said.
A dredge, miles of pipeline and other construction equipment will place about 2.2 million cubic yards of sand across sections of the island’s beaches in the coming months. This year’s project is similar in scale to other beach planned renourishment efforts on the island in the last 30 years, Creed said. When compared to other communities in the Southeast, a project of this size is not unusual.
When the city first planned its beach renourishment program in the late 1980s, they anticipated that the island would need to add about 1.5 to 2.5 million cubic yards of sand every decade or so. That prediction has so far held up in the past 35 years, Creed said.
Because contractors who pump the sand to shore and shape it on the beach charge a large fee to move their equipment to the site, bigger projects tend to make more sense economically, Creed said.
A little luck and a lot of planning
Unlike some coastal municipalities, which often rely on the availability of state and federal funding for their renourishment projects, Hilton Head pays for almost all of their beach management projects themselves. Shortly after Hilton Head incorporated as a town in 1983, town leaders knew they needed a plan to address erosion issues that had been plaguing the island.
“The Town of Hilton Head Island is an example, a national example, in my opinion, of a community that is not dependent on external cost sharing partners like the Corps of Engineers or the state to implement the program,” Creed said.
Before beach restoration, half the island’s oceanfront was supported by sea walls and revetments. At North Forest Beach, waves only crashed into a big rock wall, no sandy beach in sight.
A 2% accommodation tax on hotels and short-term rentals pays for the town’s beach preservation. Sometimes these projects are supplemented with some grant money, but Hilton Head largely pays for the renourishment themselves.
The planning for these beach renourishment starts years ahead of their start date. After each renourishment, engineers go out to the beaches twice a year to monitor the results of the previous project, which informs decisions about the amount of placement of sand for the next project, Creed said.
There are also studies that identify sources of sand that match what’s already on the beach. Choosing the wrong type of sand can impact the stability of the beach and wildlife. There are some areas of the coast, especially near Myrtle Beach and North Carolina, where adequate sources of sand close to shore are difficult to come by, Creed said. Luckily, Hilton Head has shoals in the Calibogue and Port Royal Sound that are easy locations to take sand from.
“It’s just a fortunate situation to be in geographically,” Creed said.
This project also includes the installation of six breakwaters, a structure that will reduce the energy of waves before they come ashore, between Dolphin Head and Pine Island. The waves and current from the Port Royal Sound erode the area very quickly. So this project includes adding more sand to the area and breakwaters to slow the erosion. Whereas previous projects placed 30,000 cubic yards of sand in the area, this time the contractor will use 200,000 cubic yards of sand to rebuild the beach and dunes.
Planning is necessary, so is patience
Hilton Head published the schedule and start date for the project early July. Creed said the start date of Aug. 6 has been pushed back slightly because the barge that will pump the sand to the beach is delayed due to some bad weather.
Because much of the project will happen over the winter, when the ocean isn’t as calm, delays due to weather are expected at certain points.
“This is a very complicated construction process in the ocean,” Creed said.
