The first North Carolina beach community to build a terminal groin after state lawmakers lifted a 30-year ban is looking at the possibility of constructing more hardened erosion-control structures.
The Village of Bald Head Island recently asked its legislative delegates to bump the number of permits the state can issue for terminal groins from six to seven, giving the Brunswick County island government the option of building a groin at the east end of south beach to curb erosion. This is an area where chronic erosion threatens The Shoals Club, a private club that has a state-permitted sandbag revetment installed on the property to help protect it from the encroaching ocean.
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The village is also considering replacing a series of fabric sand tubes installed along the west end of south beach with a rock structures.
Proposed changes to the 2011 law were recently handed over to Rep. Charles Miller, Sen. Bill Rabon, both Republicans, and N.C. Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser.
Biser and Miller visited the island May 17 after touring the Brunswick County water treatment plant’s reverse osmosis project, according to Sharon Martin, DEQ’s deputy secretary of public affairs.
“Secretary Biser appreciated the opportunity to meet with the local leaders and hear their concerns,” Martin said in an email responding to questions. “The visit to BHI was part of the Brunswick County visits arranged by Representative Miller for that afternoon.”
Language the village has drafted to amend the current law specifies that the number of rock structures that would replace fiber, sand-filled tubes would not exceed the existing number of permitted tubes or surpass the length of the longest existing tube.
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“The structure(s) or field of structures may consist of groins,” the draft language states.
It is unclear if and when the drafted language might be introduced in the General Assembly.
Miller’s office did not respond to a phone call and email for comment. Rabon’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.
The existing soft tube groin field rests on the opposite end of south beach from the 1,300-foot-long terminal groin built nearly 10 years ago. The groin, a wall-like structure built perpendicular to the ocean shoreline, is designed to stop the movement of sand.
Bald Head Island Public Information Officer and Deputy Clerk Carin Faulkner explained that the village is being proactive in exploring long-term, more cost-effective shoreline stabilization alternatives at the west end of south beach.
Fiber tubes must be replaced every four or five years, she said.
Bald Head is among a small number of Brunswick beaches that get sand injections from periodic dredging that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers does to maintain the Wilmington Harbor navigation channel.
The sand the village receives is typically not enough to stretch along the entirety of south beach, leaving the east end sand starved.
“We have successfully proven that an engineered beach solution works to stabilize our shoreline,” Bald Head Island Mayor Pro Tem Scott Gardner said in a statement to Coastal Review. “The combination of soft groins, a terminal groin, and a sand management plan have demonstrated that by slowing the movement of sand from our beaches, we can protect our infrastructure and property, and improve habitat for wildlife. Our 2025 plan maintains the quality of shoreline stabilization on the west end of south beach and allow us to begin investigating the possibility of a similar stabilization plan on the east end of south beach.”
The 2025 locally funded coastal storm damage reduction project will place more than 1 million cubic yards of sand onto shore at the terminal groin fillet, the east end of south beach and used to fill new fiber tubes that will replace existing ones in the tube groin field on the west end.
The village has obtained the necessary permits for the project, which is ready to go out for bids, Faulkner said.
Sand for the 2025 project is being tapped from Jay Bird Shoals, a borrow source that is not projected to have enough sand to provide for the future needs of Bald Head’s ocean beach.
The village has thus far unsuccessfully convinced the federal government to allow it to use a portion of Frying Pan Shoals as a sand borrow source.
In 2017, the village applied for a federal permit to mine with a 460-acre area on the western portion of Frying Pan Shoals about a mile off the island’s southeast shoreline.
Frying Pan Shoals is a line of shallow sandbars trailing from the southeastern tip of Bald Head island some 30 miles into the Atlantic Ocean and is an area that has no record of ever being dredged.
This is an area that includes essential fish habitat, a federal designation that describes waters and substrate necessary for fish for spawning, breeding, feeding or growth to maturity.
Bald Head Island is one of only two beach towns authorized to build terminal groins since the General Assembly in 2011 repealed the longstanding ban on the use of hardened erosion-control structures on the state’s beaches. Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County built its terminal groin in the winter of 2021-22.
Figure Eight Island in New Hanover County, Holden Beach in Brunswick County and Carteret County ultimately decided against building terminal groins on their shores.
North Topsail Beach in Onslow County is developing a draft environmental impact statement examining potential options, including a hardened structure, for stabilizing its shore at the New River Inlet.
Coastal Review Assistant Editor Jennifer Allen contributed to this report.
