MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – We’re less than two months away from the beginning of the summer tourist season in Myrtle Beach and the city is planning to balance busy beaches with important projects.
This summer, the city plans to add about a million cubic yards of sand to its beaches after years of losing sand to hurricanes and other storms. It’s just one idea to protect the city’s beaches on- and off-shore.
Last year, North Myrtle Beach, Garden City Beach and Surfside Beach all went through renourishment. It’s a process of adding more sand to a beach.
This year, it’s Myrtle Beach’s turn.
“Whatever inconvenience it may cause in the immediate future is worthwhile in the long-term health of the beach,” said Steve Taylor, chairman of the city’s beach advisory committee.
The beach advisory committee met Tuesday to discuss this summer’s renourishment project. Taylor says the Army Corps of Engineers is expected to pick a contractor in April.
However, it’s unclear when exactly renourishment will start.
“We’re beholden to their schedule as to when they’ll choose to start in myrtle beach,” Taylor said.
In 2016, a Coastal Carolina University oceanographer told News 13 about the long-term need to replace sand in tourist areas.
“Your options are: You defend the beach – renourishment, or you allow the beach to be where it wants to be, and you can keep development out of the way,” said Dr. Paul Gayes, director of the Burroughs and Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies at CCU.
Renourishment in Myrtle Beach will only close about 1,000 feet of beach per day.
Crews are expected to take two to three days to finish a strip of beach the size of a city block.
“It’s obviously not ideal, but they did beach renourishment in (Surfside Beach) during the summertime,” Taylor said.
The committee also discussed the city’s planned $50 million in stormwater system upgrades over the next decade. Taylor says the city of Myrtle Beach has already spent $77 million in the last 20 years to improve drainage systems.
The goal is to fix or replace old drainage systems and improve water quality along beaches.
“We’re taking water from several miles, gathering that and trying to disperse it further out into the ocean,” said Taylor. “That is just a very complex process.”
Taylor says Myrtle Beach’s ocean water is very clean. He says tests showed water had higher than normal levels of bacteria just 1.5 percent of the time last year.
No matter when it starts, the Myrtle Beach renourishment project has to be completed by December 15.