Why rising costs have left some Wilmington-area beach nourishment projects high and dry

Some Wilmington-area beaches, recently covered by a rare snow storm, will soon again be a hive of activity as officials take advantage of the open environmental window − outside of sea turtle and shorebird nesting season − to pump fresh sand onto the vital economic engines for many coastal communities.

The activity, however, will be muted this year, and that has officials in both New Hanover and Brunswick counties concerned.

What’s going on?

Call it the law of supply and demand.

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.

“Sources of sand are drying up in some places,” said Dr. Robert Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. “Borrow areas don’t make sand. These are non-renewable resources. And as you creep offshore even a little, costs go up, often a lot.

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.

“There are simply a limited number of companies out there that can do this kind of work, and competition is fierce because we’re literally trying to hold the line everywhere from from Saco, Maine, to Padre Island, Texas, and that’s only a little bit of an exaggeration,” Young said. “When you have a lot of demand and not a ton of supply, the people who do work like this are really in the driver’s seat.”

What have been the impacts this year?

With prices coming in well above predictions, some Cape Fear-area beach towns are having to adapt and make painful decisions. In New Hanover County, the periodic federal nourishment of Carolina and Kure beaches is one that has fallen victim to the financial headwinds.

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.

In a letter to residents, Kure Beach Mayor Allen Oliver said the price differential was just too much to overcome this winter.

“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,” the mayor said. “We should get better pricing and more bidders participating.”

The delay means the two New Hanover beach towns will have to go longer than expected 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.

“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 Brunswick County, Oak Island also is feeling the pain of higher prices and not enough competition.

When the town opened bids up this fall for a large-scale, end-to-end beach nourishment project to take place this winter, the bids from two companies “were significantly above a feasible budget for the town, which was reflective of the fact that there is essentially no availability of dredging company equipment to conduct the project during that timeframe,” states a post on Oak Island’s website. The project is estimated to cost at least $40 million, with half of that covered by a one-time state grant.

Bids for the same work to take place during the 2025-26 dredging window came closer to the town’s budget, and Oak Island officials are now in negotiations to see if the work can get done between mid-November and late April 2026.

“If negotiations are not successful, the project will be rebid in 2025,” the town stated online.

Now officials and residents have to hope the beach can hold out until then. Hurricane Isaias, which raked the Brunswick County shoreline nearly five years ago, chewed away a lot of the beach. Storms, king tides and gradual sea-level rise has since then added to the pain − not to mention the no-name storm and the remnants of Tropical Storm Helene that hit Brunswick County last September and October, respectively.

Big beach projects aren’t the only ones getting caught up in the financial squeeze. A project put out to bid by the corps of engineers to dredge the shipping channel near the mouth of the Cape Fear River this winter and place the sand on Oak Island and Caswell Beach also came in 20% over estimates.

Is it all bad news?

At least one beach town in the Wilmington area will be seeing new sand this winter.

This week, Surf City will begin pumping sand from Banks Channel on the Intracoastal Waterway side of the Pender County beach town onto its beach strand. The nearly $20 million project, which is expected to wrap up in late March, will nourish the town’s entire strand, adding an estimated 60 feet of beach from the Topsail Beach line to 1,000 feet north of the Surf City Fishing Pier.

Town Manager Kyle Breuer said although Surf City only received one bid for the work, it was within the town’s estimates and the timing of when the dredging could take place within the fairly narrow fall/winter navigational window also worked.

“We were very fortunate and very thankful,” he said.

Breuer noted that not only will the project help nourish Surf City’s eroded beach, but also piggyback on the earlier dredging of parts of Banks Channel done by Topsail Beach to improve navigation around the southern half of Topsail Island.

The breakdown of the project’s cost is roughly $5 million from Surf City and about $14.5 million in funding coming through a one-time state grant.

What does the future look like?

Unfortunately, a lot like today − if not worse − for beach towns desperate to hold back the encroaching ocean, Western Carolina’s Young said.

He said the pressures that are driving prices upward are only likely to increase as sea-level rise, more storms and increased development make shore protection efforts more frequent and necessary than ever along many parts of the country’s oceanfront.

The new Trump administration’s stated goal of taking a fine-tooth comb to the federal budget and slashing a lot of discretionary spending also could leave many coastal communities hunting for new revenue sources outside of Washington just as dredging prices surge and the need for beach nourishment increases.

“Beaches are not stable, they move, so the only future I see is one where costs are increasing because there’s only so much sand and we’re doing it more often and in more places,” Young said.

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