Posted on May 13, 2026
Federal and state regulators are reviewing comments on a proposal to dredge a new channel for Pawleys Inlet and restore the beach at Prince George, including one from the National Marine Fisheries Service that the work be done in the fall rather than the summer.
A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said last week they had not “fully processed our next steps” toward deciding whether to hold a public hearing. The state Department of Environment Services previously said it had not yet decided whether to hold a hearing.
The project was first proposed in 2023 after Pawleys Inlet migrated south and Pawleys Creek eroded the beachfront at Prince George. Lawsuits filed by property owners at Prince George claimed the erosion was caused by a renourishment project on Pawleys Island that placed 1.1 million cubic yards of offshore sand on the beach in 2020.
The suits named the town, its contractors and two state agencies, including the Department of Health and Environmental Control, which permitted the renourishment and is now, as the Department of Environmental Services, reviewing the permit to move the inlet.
The work requires a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to move the inlet to within 1,000 feet of the public parking lot on the island’s south end by digging a channel 350 feet wide and 8 feet deep across the spit. It will move 300,000 cubic yards of sand to block the existing inlet and rebuild the beach at Prince George.
Of the more than 30 comments received by the Corps, most were from Prince George property owners supporting the project. They cited the damage done to the beach that threatens homes as well as habitat for shorebirds and sea turtles.
“When properly done inlet relocation can result in widening beaches, improving water circulation, creating better habitat for animals and plants, and reducing downdrift erosion,” Richard Moore, a retired biology professor at Coastal Carolina University and a Prince George resident, told the Corps.
Barry Stanton, a property owner on Pawleys Island, asked the Corps and Environmental Services to hold a public hearing, “more than a mere ‘public hearing,’ ” he wrote.
He noted that DES, Coastal Science and Engineering, which designed the project, and the town of Pawleys Island were all defendants in the lawsuits and parties to a settlement agreement that included the inlet relocation. The Corps also has a stake in the outcome because it has funds to place more offshore sand on Pawleys Island, something Prince George agreed not to oppose as part of the settlement agreement.
“An agreement is not a basis for a permit,” Stanton wrote.
He has challenged the town’s efforts to condemn an easement on his property and two others on the south end that the Corps says are needed for its renourishment project.
Stanton also questioned the permit application’s proposal for an “inlet management zone,” which will define the future limits of Pawleys Inlet. “There is zero statutory or other legal authority” for approving such a zone, he wrote.
But he said the one-time project “is not altogether bad,” adding that “the people at Prince George have taken a hard block from the path of Pawleys south creek.”
Other agencies said they agree with the applicant that impact on wildlife will be limited if the project follows U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines. Marine Fisheries said that could be improved if work is done in the fall.
The state Department of Archives and History asked the Corps to require a cultural resources survey along the creek and beach in the project area.
Neither the Corps nor DES have said whether they would hold a public hearing on the permit request.
