The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Charleston District, has just released the Draft Environmental Assessment for the North Myrtle Beach renourishment project.
USACE is currently involved in the planning phase of a beach emergency repair in the Grand Strand (Myrtle Beach) of Horry County, South Carolina.
The Myrtle Beach Project – authorized for construction by Section 101 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1990 – requires the construction of separate protective beach in three separate reaches, North Myrtle Beach (Reach 1), Myrtle Beach (Reach 2), and Garden City/Surfside Beach (Reach 3). The total project reach is 25.3 miles.
According to the Corps, funding is available for Reach 1 North Myrtle Beach. The proposed project is to restore approximately 3.3 miles of shoreline along North Myrtle Beach with approx 362,000 cubic yards of sand to be taken from the Little River borrow site and placed along the beach.
USACE has prepared a Supplemental EA to communicate new environmental information and update the coordination between USACE, the public, and resource agencies. The draft EA is available for public review from March 17, 2017 until April 17, 2017.
Last year, the Corps prepared an EA with a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for Reach 3 (Garden City/Surfside) of the Myrtle Beach Storm Damage Reduction Project. The project was anticipated to have been constructed throughout the fall and winter of 2016/2017; however, due to contracting constraints the project construction was postponed.
The Corps now intends to issue a contract for the construction of both Reach 1 and 3 and the same time.