NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Dozens of North Myrtle Beach residents took to the streets on Saturday to urge city leaders to help preserve the dunes by Ingram Beach.
“When you drive by Hillside or Strand it’s not necessarily obvious to people what all the fuss is about. But it has a long history, and people love this place and it’s worth preserving,” says Jane Vernon. She grew up playing in the Ingram Dunes. “There’s a clump of cedars that we used to play in close to the house, and then there was another clump of trees, a fairy ring of trees, that we called paradise. We’d try to get from tree to tree to tree our whole childhood, like squirrels.”
It’s been more than 50 years since then, and the dunes are now the only secondary dune ecosystem left in the Grand Strand.That’s why Jane and other concerned residents are rallying for city leaders and the land owners to help preserve the dunes, instead of turning it into a housing development. Vernon argues, “people do not drive down from Ohio to see another strip mall, they drive to south Carolina to see live oaks, moss, experience all of the ecosystem.”
Rally organizers estimate preservation will cost about $5 million. They hope the city will pay for about $2 million, and plan to raise the rest of the cost through the South Carolina Conservation Bank, and other conservation groups. Damien Triouleyre, one of the organizers of the rally, argues the dunes are a worthy investment for the city because they help prevent storm water drainage problems. “Even with Hurricane Matthew, we got very little damage on that side of the dunes, almost nothing. The dunes completely blocked it.”
Vernon says turning the dunes into a preservation would draw more tourists to the beach. She adds the city could even use the outskirts of the dunes as additional beach parking. However, she maintains that the dunes are worth much more than their utility, ““If this was lost to NMB it would be the equivalent of Central Park disappearing from Manhattan.”
