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Calibogue Sound is a Force of Nature

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Calibogue Sound

Storm clouds over Calibogue Sound. Photo: Marianne Ballantine

THE BLUE BOUNDARY separating Hilton Head Island from the mainland is a wide, sweeping waterway named Calibogue Sound. The sound is melded from the confluence of Mackay Creek, May River, Cooper River, Broad Creek, and six tributaries on Hilton Head Island. Deep and 13 miles long, this waterway curves like the body of a dolphin and connects the Atlantic Ocean with Port Royal Sound. It is a place of history and natural wonders, beckoning discovery.
The name Calibogue (pronounced kal i-bow-gee) is derived from a southern Creek Indian word meaning “deep spring.” The central channel, hugging the western flank of Hilton Head lsland’s Spanish Wells and Sea Pines communities, is nearly 70 feet deep. Scientists have measured the bottom of this channel and discovered cavernous rock cliffs carved by strong seabed currents. The diversity of water flow and depth mixes sediments and nutrients in the water. This produces good habitat for marine life.

A WATERWAY FOR WILDLIFE
Calibogue Sound is Hilton Head Island’s most ancient natural resource. From bank to bank, and at every twist and turn, you can view a diversity of wildlife.
• Headwaters of the Sound wrap around Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge, home for bald eagle, osprey, vast flocks of wading birds, and a safe home for migratory shorebirds.
• Salt marshes lining the Sound are acre-for-acre the most productive wildlife communities on the Island. These wetlands have it all: food, shelter and water for species ranging from oysters to great blue herons.
• Sandbars and shell banks are vital habitat for American oystercatcher, black skimmers, gulls, terns, sandpipers, and wading birds.
• Bottlenose dolphins are plentiful in Calibogue Sound. Although dolphins were thought to be a migratory species, researchers have learned that in Calibogue Sound, about 200 dolphins remain year-round. The fishing is that good!

FUN IN THE SOUND
• Ecotours are guided tours in small boats or sea kayaks (my favorite). Trained naturalists will lead you to prime wildlife viewing and interpret the history of Hilton Head Island, nearby Daufuskie Island, and the Bluffton area.
• Dolphin Watching cruises are available by kayak, small boat or large cruisers. Remember: feeding dolphins is illegal.
• Inshore fishing charters are offered from the public docks and marinas on the Island. Depending on the time of year, quarry includes red drum, Spanish mackerel, tarpon, whiting, and more.
• Sailing is offered through charters at local marinas. You will always remember a sunset cruise on the golden water of Calibogue Sound.

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Three Mystery Beaches On Hilton Head Island

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Hilton Head Island Beach

Explore the beauty, history and lure of Hilton Head Island's beaches.

The beach on Hilton Head Island is a house of mysteries. Around every bend is a clue about places of great battles, lost plantations, landscapes reshaped. This Island keeps its secrets at the water’s edge. But you can discover the clues if you know where to look.

GONE WITH THE WAVES

Dolphin Head beach is a dynamic strand. Located on the northern tip of the Island, this shoreline has retreated back at least 1,000 yards. Relentless tidal currents in Port Royal Sound have rolled the beach into the nearby salt marsh. At high tide this strand is only a few yards wide.

At ebb (low) tide, vast gray sand flats appear. The landscape is a gallery of things past: bleached live oak logs, clumps of ancient marsh grass, tidal pools that lure shorebirds, and most mysterious: odd blocks encrusted with oyster shells. These were tabby cement footings on the renowned Myrtle Bank Plantation. Here William Elliot was the first to cultivate long-staple Sea Island Cotton, which brought great wealth to Hilton Head Island planters—before the Civil War washed away the plantation economy, and the rising sea level washed away the Elliot’s plantation manse.


THE ISLAND EVERGLADES

The “Folly” is a creek that cuts across the beach between Singleton Beach Road and Burke’s Beach Road, south of the Folly Field community. Powerful tidal currents pour inland through the Folly and nourish a bay-shaped salt marsh behind rows of dunes. The Folly marsh is a nature treasure for two reasons.  First, the shallow tidal grassland is a refuge for wildlife: wading birds, osprey, and white-tailed deer and coastal fish.  Second, Folly Creek is a secret memory, a remnant of an inland marsh that ran parallel to the shore, like a Lowcountry Everglades. The Folly flowed all the way to Sea Pines, where it turned back into the ocean. About 50 years ago, this little river of grass was converted to a matrix of lagoons, canals, and even a golf course over 50 years ago. Folly Creek and marsh is all that remains of the ancient waterway.
WHERE THE CIVIL WAR ENDED

On November 7, 1861, a Union armada anchored off Scarborough Head, the northeastern heel of foot-shaped Hilton Head Island and blasted Confederate defenses at Confederate Fort Walker. Rebel troops fled the decimated fort as Union forces invaded, effectively ending the Civil War—at least on Hilton Head Island. What is today vibrant community and resort was then the central port for the Atlantic coastal blockade by the U.S. Navy of southern ports, and the station for 40,000 blue-coated troops.

The Scarborough Head beach (now called the Port Royal beach) is flat and over 100 yards wide at low tide. If you know where to look at the water’s edge, you may see a remnant post, wave-worn and encrusted with marine life. This might have supported the naval dock, 1,000 feet in length. It is another clue that great mysteries are embedded in the Island’s vast beaches.

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Saving Nature Reclaimed water is the Number One Environmental Success Story on Hilton Head Island

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WhoopingCraneConservancy

Restored Whooping Crane Conservancy. Photo by Marianne Ballantine

DO YOU WONDER where the water goes once you turn off the tap? Step out of your shower? Or flush? Besides delivering water to you, the Island’s two largest utilities Hilton Head Public Service District and South Island Public Service District treat this “wastewater” to strict quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. But don’t think of this water as waste. It’s a valuable resource waiting for the right place to go. Happily, Hilton Head Island is just the right place.

NOT ONE DROP TO WASTE

In the early 1900s, many American cities discharged poorly treated and even untreated wastewater into river, lakes, and oceans. Los Angeles County was first to irrigate California golf courses with such wastewater. Problem: this water contained pollutants harmful to people and the environment.  Passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act established standards for eliminating pollution in waters of the U.S. A key quality standard set the goal that surface waters must be “swimmable and fishable.” That goal improved water quality for humans. But what about plants and animals?

Reclaimed water is advanced-treated, or “tertiary treated” domestic-use water. It’s sometimes called “reuse water” or “recycled water.” I call it LIFE.

The reclaimed water process adheres to water quality standards and just as important, to the best practices of ecological restoration, right here on the Island.

  • The water meets all standards for nutrient and toxin removal.
  • The water is distributed to the six largest freshwater wetland systems on the Island.
  • The utilities provide reclaimed water as lower cost irrigation on local golf courses.

This aqua-recycling program in the first sustainable technology created and successfully implemented on Hilton Head Island. Distribution of this water rectifies past impacts from development. Reclaimed water restores old growth forest, and enhances biodiversity. This in turn creates new opportunities for nature-based ecotourism—the fastest growing sector of tourism in the world.

WHERE THE WATER IS

Hilton Head Island is the only community in the U.S. to have SIX reclaimed water restoration projects. In future blogs, we’ll explore these Green Sanctuaries:

  • Whooping Crane Pond Conservancy
  • Cypress Conservancy
  • Boggy Gut
  • White Ibis Swamp
  • Sawgrass Savanna
  • Blackgum Bottomland

These names are intriguing enough. Wait until I show you who lives there!

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The Wings of Autumn

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WHEN SHADOWS GROW LONG and the temperature cools, you will see a flurry of bird activity on Hilton Head Island and throughout the Lowcountry. By September, many species of birds begin migration—their mass exodus to wintering grounds. They will wing en-masse thousands of miles to exotic climes like the Yucatan or Paraguay. Other species migrate to the Island’s beaches and wetlands from faraway climes such as the Arctic tundra.

marbled godwit

Rare marbled godwits eating in the shoal. Photo by Marianne Ballantine

Birds migrate in order to eat. When their supply of nutrients in their summer territories dwindles, they must find new feeding locations elsewhere. For instance, avian species that consume invertebrates, such as insects, spiders, worms and crabs in Canadian marsh mud or tidal pools often show up on Hilton Head Island by late October. Warblers, vireos and other bug-and-berry-eating birds depart the Island and migrate south this time of the year.

This pageant of exodus and survival is a spectacular sight to see.

SHOREBIRDS COME …

Between September and late November, hosts of shorebirds arrive on our beaches and salt marsh creek banks and mudflats. This group of thin-legged, quick-footed busybodies ranges from sandpipers, snipes and stilts to plovers, dowitchers, and ruddy turnstones. The most rare species to see is the red knot. This stocky little wader is a Migration World Champion: its migration route stretches 9,300 miles from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, the southern tip of South America. And it makes the trip twice a year!

The best place to see shorebirds: Visit Fish Haul Creek beach, a quiet strand of tidal pools mud flats adjoining a big salt mash bay. Access: park at Fish Haul Creek Park and follow trails and signs to the shore.

… SONGBIRDS GO

As shorebirds migrate to Hilton Head Island, another avian group migrates south from the Island. It’s an avian version of Saturday checkout, check-in times at our resorts. Departing in autumn are the hummingbirds and songbirds—warblers, buntings, vireos, finches and other melody-makers. These are called Neotropical migrants because they fly south to the Caribbean islands, Central America and South America for the winter. That’s where the food is: insects, in particular. One migration power-bird is the purple martin, which wings up to 6,000 miles south to Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina.

Autumn, with cooler weather and clear air, is a great time to grab your camera or binoculars and watch this epoch, urgent drama of wildlife survival.

 

 

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The Colorful Ocean

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The Colorful Atlantic Ocean at sunset.

THE OLIVE TINGE of seawater off Hilton Head Island may surprise first-time visitors here. Why isn’t the water crystal-clear, like Waikiki Beach or the Bahamas, for instance?  There is a perfectly natural reason for this condition, and it bodes well for the ecological health of surrounding waters.

Gifts from the Ocean Garden

In the Atlantichttp://geography.about.com/library/cia/blcatlantic.htm Ocean, as in your garden, summertime is the growing season. When water near the shore tops 85 degrees (July-August), what flourish most in the shoals are diatoms. These are microscopic, one celled, plants known as phytoplankton (translation: “floating plants”). Diatoms are harmless to people, and in fact are significantly beneficial in the ocean ecosystem. When conditions are right, diatoms and their kin turn the water pale, greenish-gold.

Diatoms are a main ingredient in the Nature Soup of micro-plants and animals in the ocean shoals. These are consumed by filter feeding shrimp snails, clams, crabs and fish in the sea, on the seafloor, and even in the beach sand. Watch for holes and tubes on the lower beach: there is a live, plankton-gobbling critter living in each! The gulls, terns, brown pelicans, splashing schools of fish, and bottlenose dolphins are all out there because the colorful ocean supports the food web they need to survive.

The Salt Marsh Plays a Role

The brownish tint in the ocean is caused by detritus—suspended plants particles that tides carry from salt marsh on the lee side of the island. This fecund wetland generates 10 tons of detritus (Latin for “wear away”) per acre every year. So, some of this organic bouillabaisse is going to make its way to the beach, courtesy of strong currents and 6-9 foot tides.

The Blue Desert

Aquamarine tropical seas are certainly beautiful to view. You can even see your feet when you wade. Snorkeling is superb.  But the clear blue water is quite empty of ocean life. Most biological activity is concentrated on reefs. Those postcard-perfect Bahamian waters are caused by the scattering of light among water molecules unfettered by diatoms or organic matter. Truth is, the tropical sea is a water desert compared to South Carolina’s lively, colorful ocean.

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Spanish Moss: The True Story

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Innocent! Spanish moss does NOT strangle or kill trees. Photo by Marianne Ballantine

LIKE RIP VAN WINKLE’S BEARD, Spanish moss hangs in silvery-gray strands from weathered live oaks. Newcomers are quick to ask: “Doesn’t that ‘fungus’ kill the tree? The short answer: no and no. Spanish moss is not a fungus (or a moss, for that matter!) and it doesn’t harm the tree. In fact, lacy plant just may be the key to the survival of coastal forests.

A well-traveled member of the pineapple family, Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) ranges from coastal Virginia to Argentina. It is an “epiphyte,” or air plant that only hangs from branches to take in sunlight, rainwater, and nutrients in dust.

In the Lowcountry, Spanish moss flowers from April through July. On moist, warm evenings you may smell the delicate fragrance from very tiny blossoms. Late in summer, the three-petal flowers produce sliver-sized seedpods. These release seeds with downy hairs (think dandelion seeds, but way smaller). The aerial seeds float aloft until they strike a tree—usually a live oak, then slide off the waxy outer leaves, and finally settle in the fissures and crags of aging lower limbs. At this level, foliage is sparse and craggy dead branches are common. Here the moss grows, forming those showy festoons.

Live oak, black gum, and bald cypress trees have the most fissured bark and widest spreading, horizontal limbs. This is where you will see the Spanish moss strands. Palms are too bushy and pines too spindly-branched to support this plant.

The verdict: Innocent! Spanish moss does NOT strangle or kill trees.

More Than a Pretty Lace

In nature, nothing is useless and nothing goes to waste. This goes for Spanish moss too. Deer, wild turkeys and horses eat the delicate leaves. Many species of birds—bald eagle, osprey, red-shouldered hawk, owls, mockingbird, and many more use the moss as nest cushioning and insulation. Gray squirrels also fluff their nests with Spanish moss. And it’s those ADD squirrels that harvest acorns, bury those acorns, and promptly forget where those acorns are. Perhaps, if it weren’t for Spanish moss, the absent-minded squirrels wouldn’t have survived to plant the next generation of oak trees!

Gullah and coastal Indian healers brewed the leaves as tea to reduce fevers, birth pangs, and menopausal discomfort. It turns out that this unassuming plant is a concentrated source of natural estrogen. Spanish moss poultices were applied to relieve pains of rheumatism. And automaker Henry Ford must have learned about the properties of Spanish moss on his Richmond Hill, GA plantation. It turns out he used the fluffy strands for cushioning and insulating the seats in the first Model-T Fords.

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The Bridge to Sustainability

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cross island expressway

Cross Island Expressway: Photo courtesy of Marianne Ballantine

WHAT DOES “SUSTAINABILITY” MEAN? It’s a popular moniker these days, like “green” and “natural.” But how can you prove if something is sustainable or not? Today’s post shows what sustainability looks like. Sometimes it even wears concrete.

Hilton Head Island, South Carolina is a bustling resort and residential community. It has a colorful history and a rich ecosystem with vast salt marshes, old-growth forests, primordial wetlands, and plentiful wildlife. And this isle has about 34,000 full-time residents plus several million tourists per year. And in the “the season” (May-September), we have traffic.

Hilton Head Island is shaped like a foot almost sliced in half lengthwise by Broad Creek. The 7-mile river is the ecological heart of the Island. For 20 centuries or more, Islanders had to take a slow boat or make the long, time-consuming trek on trails and plantation roads around the creek to reach the other end of the Island.

In 1956, the State of S.C. constructed a two-lane “swing bridge” to the Island. U.S. Highway 278 was paved to accommodate the predicted influx of cars. Gas cost 20 cents a gallon. People came to this quiet hamlet and real estate sales began. The first hotels opened. Soon courses were developed.

The wake-up call. Reality struck in 1974. A barge collided with our one and only mainland connection, the James Byrnes Bridge. For six long weeks, no one could enter or leave the Island. People now understood that Island living is an adventure, and a tad vulnerable.

The Town of Hilton Head Island incorporated in 1983. The population had grown 600 percent. More than one-half million tourists visited the island annually. Traffic clogged William Hilton Parkway. This lengthened local school bus routes, slowed fire fighting vehicles, and impacted EMS response time. People began talking about the need for a second highway on the Island.

The debate over a new road heated into the 1990s. On one side, the Town leaders, emergency services, business interests, and civic groups supported the program to improve the quality of Island life. Opposing the road were residents living near the proposed route and several conservationists. Urgent civic interests vs. not-in-my backyard rage and theoretical nature protection: this was a no-win argument in the community.

The situation begged a Third Way—beyond win-loose.

People, Places, and Things

In the 1980s and 1990s I wrote extensively in my newspaper columns about how to create a better highway on Hilton Head Island. Ballantine Environmental Resources worked pro bono on this project to assure the highway would: save lives and also not impact local communities (people); (2) preserve the island’s upland and wetland ecosystem (places); and (3) enhance the local economy (things).

In a collaborative effort employing new environmental techniques, federal and state agencies, the Town of Hilton Head Island, and the S.C. Sierra Club agreed upon a design for Cross Island Parkway: the state’s first sustainable highway.

Today, when you travel on this road, look for:

  • Broad Creek Bridge. The four-lane Charles Fraser Bridge crosses sensitive tidal salt marsh habitat. Scuppers attached under the bridge collect all stormwater and convey it away from the Creek. The pilings in the creek provide reef-like structures for shellfish, sessile (attaching) organisms, and gamefish.
  • Wetland basins. Freshwater wetlands were created at the foot of the bridge to capture highway runoff. The bald cypress and willow wetlands filter nutrients and remove runoff water through evapotranspiration (evaporation from water and vegetation).
  • Natural sound buffers. A complex of earthen berms, native plantings, masonry walls, and highway grade changes minimize sound pollution.
  • Alternative transportation. Bicycle trails, lanes, and pedestrian pathways allow for non-vehicular use of the parkway route.
  • Tolls, not taxes. The highway is funded with user fees, not public taxes.

Sustainability Teaches

The Cross Island Parkway adventure taught me enduring lessons:

  • Finding the balance takes patience. Stakeholders need time to come to agreement. Some never will agree.
  • Have a spine. Expect criticism for seeking solutions.
  • Believe in new thinking. People, places, and things thinking is “WE” thinking.
  • Remember who you are working for: Future generations, habitats, and those organisms without a voice.
  • Be hard on the problem, soft on the people. Physical solutions are a matter of observation, study, and design. People solutions require empathy, understanding, and leadership.
  • Do it again. What if all highways could be sustainable? Let’s get started!

Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the future. -  Gro Harlem Brundtland, Special Envoy to the U.N. Secretary General on Climate Change.

 

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Trees Boost Your Bottom Line

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value of trees

Trees make life better. Photograph by Todd Ballantine

GREEN IS THE COLOR of Hilton Head Island. From the air, from your car and bike, from the fairway, from your patio: you can see that this place is the Kingdom of Trees. Thanks to stewardship of open space by developers and the Town of Hilton Head Island, the Island landscape is now a maturing, productive forest. From its grand live oaks and majestic tupelo gums to the palmettos and pines whispering in the wind, the community trees provide valuable goods and services for us all.

 

Money in the bank: 10 economic benefits of community trees

1. Property value. According to a University of Georgia study, property with trees has up to 27% higher value than a lot with no trees.

2. Shade is cool, literally. Shading trees lower the temperature of your home and yard by 20 degrees. This effect significantly shrinks your air conditioning demand – and electric bill.

3. Wind buffer. Island trees slow wind speed by nearly half. This benefit can enhance your heating bill in winter, reduce blowing dust, and protect landscape plantings from salt spray (airborne salt from the ocean and tidal marsh).

4. Air quality. Trees produce oxygen and buffer airborne toxins. This directly benefits your health.

5. Flood control. Trees slow moving water and trap debris. Through the process of evapotranspiration, trees remove nearly five feet of surface and water per acre annually.

6. Soil Conservation. Tree roots stabilize soil. Annual leaf fall (about 2 tons per acre annually) adds vital organic nutrients to your soil.

7. Noise reduction. Trees lower road noise, as islanders have learned from the buffers along William Hilton Parkway and the Cross Island Parkway.

8. Recreation. Every golfer knows that live oak on Fairway 16 is a nemesis, but that’s what makes the game a natural challenge.

9. A better neighborhood. Tree-lined streets attract families and encourage social interaction. Such a place has higher real estate value.

10. Wildlife habitat. Trees provide habitat for hundreds, if not thousands, of animal species. The sound of birds alone is a marketable asset. It says: this property is part of the natural landscape—this place is a home.

Protecting trees on Hilton Head Island

In 1986, the Town of Hilton Head Island passed the Tree Protection Ordinance to preserve the community’s diverse woodlands. At the time, fast-paced development threatened trees in the Island’s central core. The ordinance regulates tree removal and requires replacement to assure no net loss of trees or tree values.

Some in the community are now asking for changes to this ordinance. Increased permitting flexibility would allow the Town to respond to new development needs, such as road improvements and airport expansion. But the goods and services of trees, and the overwhelming dollar value they provide for everyone on this Tree Island, should not be compromised.

 

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Roots Run Deep

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Gullah farming with oyster shells and marsh grass fertilizer in fields. Illustration: Todd Ballantine

THE GULLAH people, the true native culture on the S.C. coast, have a wise saying. It goes: If you don’t know where you’re going, at least know where you’ve been. In this post, we’ll time travel and remember origins—our coastal landscape, past and modern settlers, and how well we have preserved our environment for future generations. How are we doing?

Water built this land

The Lowcountry (translation: the Atlantic Coastal Plain in South Carolina and Georgia) is a level landscape formed from sediments deposited by the Atlantic Ocean over 25,000 years ago. Hilton Head Island, closer to sea, was primarily built from sand—quartz, feldspar, and shell bits and a sprinkling of organic matter. For most of the Island, drainage is fairly good.

In contrast, the Bluffton area is the remnant of former salt marshes and their mucky sediments—silt and clay. The farther inland you go, the slower the water percolates into the ground. This organic fact of life—different soils—changed course of history in Southern Beaufort County. http://www.co.beaufort.sc.us

The Gullah have seen it all

The two soil types set up very different development and economies on Hilton Head Island and in Bluffton. On the Island, sandy soils were well suited for Sea Island cotton, a fine-fibered hybrid cultivated after 1790, and drew the highest prices. In Bluffton’s clayey land supported small farm agriculture, but little cotton. The real money was made in the muck—of the New River. Planters grew Carolina Gold rice in impounded fields built along the water edge. From Bluffton’s New River Linear Trail you can see remnants of the vast rice fields and hugging the riverbank.

Hilton Head Island’s cotton plantations and Bluffton’s rice culture thrived with the use of slaves. The unfortunate Africans who were shipped to the Charleston and Savannah slave markets primarily came from Africa’s West Coast and interior lands such as the Niger River delta. This region has similar soils and drainage to South Carolina-Georgia coast.

On Hilton Head Island, slaves taught planters how to mulch the sandy soil with “salt hay”—dried salt marsh grass stalks, and add crushed oyster shells to the soil to supply lime and other minerals. By 1850, over 20 successful cotton plantations were in cultivation on the Island. Sometimes when exploring open space, you might kick loose and oyster shell, even in the middle of the woods. Now you know where that shell came from.

In western Bluffton, on the New River, skilled slaves introduced the 3,000-year old technique of riverside impoundments for sheltering the rice fields, and crafted unique rice trunks to let water in or out of the fields, following tidal cycles and the rice-growing season.

Union forces invaded Hilton Head Island in 1861 (in the Battle of Port Royal). Southern landowners abandoned their plantations, and their slaves sought protection of the army on Hilton Head Island. In 1862, Union command established Mitchelville, America’s first town for former slaves. Mitchelville sat on high ground with arable soil, and overlooking the productive Fish Haul Creek basin. Though the town lasted for only a few decades, it was the genesis of proud Gullah (from Angola or Gola) culture.

The Town of Hilton Head Island has exciting plans to restore Mitchelville with a visitor center, classrooms, interpretive exhibits, archaeological investigations, educational tours and more.

Many secrets await discovery in the good earth at Mitchelville and on the banks of the New River. These places guard our heritage—where we have been. Do we know where we are going?

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Recycle This Beach!

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From trees to tide, the beach is an ecosystem. Photo credit: Todd Ballantine

THE FIRST PLACE people want to go after arriving to Hilton Head Island is the beach. The Island seashore is a playground, peaceful refuge, and a place of epic beauty for people. The beach is also a natural habitat with many communities: dunes, the upper beach, lower shore, tidal pools, near-shore shoals, and sandbars. And perhaps most important: the seashore is the buffer between storm waves and homes, hotels, resorts and businesses. We need the beach.

 

Six Facts of Life for a Beach

Let’s say you are staying on the Island this week. Seven days isn’t enough time to notice that the seashore is changing significantly. But it is always changing. Here is the inside scoop (of sand):

1. The Island’s present-day beach was formed because rising sea level rolled sand into place from far offshore.

2. Wind, waves, high tides, Nor’easters and tropical storms shape the beach—eroding here, building up there.

3. Longshore (sideways) currents transport sand from one area of the beach to another. Example: South Beach in Sea Pines was formed from sand eroded from the center of the Island, and transported to the south end. That’s why this area looks like a toe on the Hilton Head Island foot.

4. Without a new supply of sand, the beach will erode because the sea level is rising, slowly but steadily.

5. An eroded beach is not attractive for tourists, oceanfront real estate, or coastal wildlife.

6. Humans can restore the beach. This effort sustains the natural shore, the local economy, and significant natural habitat.

 

Beach Renourishment on Hilton Head Island

In 1990, the Town of Hilton Head Island committed to a long-range shoreline restoration program. The program has four parts. First comes the science. The Town authorized a series of engineering studies to determine why and how the beach has eroded; where erosion occurs and at what historical rate; where the sand ends up when eroded. The studies helped officials realize why the long-term rate of sand loss is significant on Bass Head, Palmetto Dunes in the midpoint of the Island’s ocean beach.

Second, the Town developed long-term plan of action. Amended in 1992 and 2008, the Comprehensive Beach Management Plan developed the strategy to protect and preserve and maintain the beach system, assure wise oceanfront development, and provide more public access to the beach. The Town has acted successfully on each of these goals.

Third, the Town developed a funding mechanism to pay for these ambitious environmental and recreational projects. The Town of Hilton Head Accommodations Tax of 2% on short-term rentals provided revenue for restoring the beach and public access.

This funding source is both logical and fair. A 2006 study by Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Visitor and Convention Bureau found that the beach is the number one attraction for 85% the Island’s 2.2 million annual visitors, and that significantly benefits commercial and resort business. The so-called “bed tax” is the fair price of admission for those who visit our beach most.

Fourth, the Town committed to a program of beach renourishment. This involves dredging sand from offshore and pumping the material back to the beach. Every 5-7 years, on average, the Town commissions a follow-up project to replace sand that has been eroded.

Beach renourishment is a sustainable program that protects the Island’s prime natural and economic resource. It is fairly funded by user groups. It improves space for recreation and supports new beach access. The elevated beach-dune buffer provides better storm protection. And it restores significant natural habitat.

Now, that’s recycling!