Folly Beach County Park Could Re-open This Summer

A huge barge slowly powers back and forth in the Folly River dumping tons of sand back onto the beach at the southwest tip of Folly Beach.

The barge has been sucking sand from a large sand bar in the river since May 5 and pumping it back onto the beach. When it's finished it will have shifted as much as 415,000 cubic yards of sand from the riverbed to the beach.

"It was sand that came from the beach and into the river," Assistant Director of Capital Projects for Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission Andy Hammill said. "We'll be pumping sand until the end of May."

Meanwhile crews with TIC (The Industrial Company) are busy building a 745-foot long terminal groin (so named because there is no more beach beyond the groin) to keep that sand on the beach and out of the Folly River again. The new groin is much longer and sturdier than the wooden and rock groins that stretch across the beach and out into the waves all along Folly. It will be constructed using steel sheet piles driven up to 20 feet into the sand, concrete, stone and other materials.

The County Park sits on the southwest tip of the island and begins at the last of those old wood and rock structures. Without a terminal groin tons of sand had washed around the island and into the Folly River over the years creating the sandbar Marinex (the company operating the barge) is excavating for the project.

In the less than two weeks since the renourishment project began Marinex has pumped nearly half of the volume of sand called for in the project (more than 176,000 cubic yards). Barge crews are working around the clock to keep the sand flowing, Hammill said.

"It's a permanent solution to maintain sand on this side of the shore," Hammill said.

Charleston County Parks officials hope to see the park re-open by July, though they caution that weather and a number of other factors will largely determine when the public can return. It has remained closed since August 2011 when strong surf and winds kicked up by Hurricane Irene scoured away much of the beach at the park.

When the park does re-open it will do so with a new parking lot converted from an 80-foot wide, 1,400-foot long construction road built to allow heavy equipment access to the groin construction project. Beach plantings to help reinforce sand dunes will also be part of the project, though the specific details of that portion of the project have not been finalized yet, Hammill said.