PLEASURE ISLAND — The multi-million renourishment project on Pleasure Island has been halted until February. According to the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, it was always in the cards, though it came as a surprise to Carolina Beach town officials.
Mayor Lynn Barbee told Port City Daily he wasn’t sure why the project was stalled, as his primary communications have been with the county. The county acts as a liaison between the town and the USACE, he explained.
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“By the time it got to us, it was: ‘Hey! This is happening,’” Barbee said.
On Dec. 18, the Carolina Beach town government posted on social media the contractor, Norfolk Dredging Company, would be demobilizing and the renourishment project would resume in mid-February. The project formally began the week of Nov. 13 and is projected to end before April 30, 2026, to account for sea turtle season.
The $23.5 million renourishment project covers 1.79 million cubic yards of beach in both Carolina and Kure beaches.
The dredge — which is the ship used to pull and transport sand — being used initially for the project has been sent to the USACE’s Philadelphia branch, which has its own dredging project underway. The ship currently used isn’t large enough to pull sand from deeper in the ocean, now needed since the inlet where the USACE was dredging for the Pleasure Island beach towns is out of sand.
“There are many, very important, competing dredging requirements in the nation, including the one in Philadelphia,” Jedidiah Cayton, public affairs specialist for the USACE, said. “The fact is that there are more dredging requirements than dredges in existence.”
Whereas the smaller ship is less suited for Pleasure Island, it does meet the needs in Philadelphia.
Since the inlet near Myrtle Sound — used for beach replenishment since 1982, USACE documents note — no longer has enough sand to sustain the project, it requires the contractor to go further off-shore with a larger vessel capable of reaching greater depths.
According to Cayton, USACE knew the inlet where the sand was initially pulled from may not have enough material to finish 1.79 million cubic yards of renourishment, for both Carolina and Kure beaches. But a smaller ship was readily available for USACE to pull from the first location and get the project started; however, the remainder will be dredged from the north end of Carolina Beach’s shoreline.
According to Cayton, Norfolk Dredging has already laid 900 cubic yards of sand within a 30-day period on the north side of the beach that extends south to Sea Gull Lane. A digitized map from the USACE, which shows the trajectory of the project, now also lays out what areas have the least sand and need renourishment the most.
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