Sea turtles at risk from effort to save high-dollar beach houses in SC, notice says
Environmentalists took action Tuesday against a group of wealthy oceanfront landowners whose efforts to protect homes from rising seas depend on walls the property owners are accused of installing illegally at the expense of wildlife and the public beach.
The S.C Coastal Conservation League, in separate legal notices, said the sandbag walls could prevent federally protected sea turtles from nesting while also hurting the seashore at Debordieu, a gated community with one of the most erosion-damaged stretches of beach in the state.
The league sent a notice threatening to take the Georgetown County property owners, state regulators, federal agencies and a university professor to court in 60 days if the sandbag walls aren’t removed — or at the very least, studied more carefully to see how they affect wildlife.
In a separate matter, the league appealed a Jan. 13 decision by the politically appointed Department of Health and Environmental Control board that has allowed the landowners to keep the sandbags, despite concerns from the agency’s professional staff.
Agency staff members have said the walls were installed without approval and that state law forbids leaving sandbags on the beach permanently. Sandbags are considered a temporary solution to high seas during bad weather, but are supposed to be removed when the threat subsides. At one point, DHEC staff members ordered the sandbag walls removed.
Despite those concerns, the DHEC board voted 3-2 Jan. 13 to overrule the agency’s staff and allow the sandbag walls to remain along the beach in front of four high-end homes at Debordieu’s southern end. The decision followed arguments by state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, a Murrells Inlet Republican, and two other lawyers who represented the property owners.
Tuesday’s appeal to the Administrative Law Court comes as property owners at Debordieu plan a privately funded beach widening project this spring. It is unclear how the appeal could affect that.
Leslie Lenhardt, a lawyer representing the conservation league, said the DHEC board’s decision in January was a mistake.
“The board of DHEC got it wrong in a lot of ways,’’ said Lenhardt, an attorney with the S.C. Environmental Law Project, a non-profit legal service.
“One is they ignored their very experienced staff — and the order gives short shrift to the (federal) Endangered Species Act. They should have dug into those questions about sea turtles before they issued this approval.’’
This week’s proceedings are the latest in a dispute over how landowners on South Carolina’s coast can protect their oceanfront investments from rising sea levels. Swelling oceans are increasingly threatening beachfront property, and seawalls and sandbags are being sought by some landowners to save high-end homes as state legislators move to ease development restrictions.
But like concrete seawalls, sandbag walls can be bad for the public beach in several ways: they make erosion worse when pounded by waves and they can block the movement of sea turtles seeking to nest in the sand.
In this case, a handful of couples bought houses on Debordieu’s extreme southern end after 2013, then sought state help in protecting their property. The area -- south of Myrtle Beach near Georgetown -- has been a flashpoint for coastal policy debates dating to the early 2000s.
Property owners who want to keep the sandbag walls are Price and Carolyn Sloan; Mark and Anne Tiberio; the Schulte Living Trust, whose trustees are Michael and Laura Schulte; and Northwest properties, whose owner is Rodney Cain. Property records show home addresses in North Carolina.
Joe Owens, an attorneys for the property owners, was not immediately available Tuesday to comment. Goldfinch also was not immediately available. Attorneys for the landowners say the sandbag walls won’t hurt sea turtles but will protect property from the ocean. They have argued that sandbag walls should be left as a scientific experiment.
The league’s letter says DHEC, the property owners and Coastal Carolina University professor Paul Gayes need a federal permit authorizing the take, or killing, of sea turtles, because the sandbag walls will block the reptiles’ movement. Without the permit, they are in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act, the letter said.
Lenhardt said the hope is that a permit would be sought, and the federal government would turn down the permit request because of the harm that could come to sea turtles.
At least four varieties of sea turtles are found in South Carolina, most notably the Loggerhead turtle, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Loggerheads lay eggs in dunes and on sandy beaches each summer, but bright lights can scare them off and walls can block them from depositing the eggs. After encountering a wall on the beach, the turtles then sometimes return to the sea and release the eggs, preventing baby turtles from hatching, according to the 60-day notice threatening the lawsuit.
Rising seas, coupled with coastal development, are key threats to habitat needed by loggerhead turtles to nest, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service. Loggerhead sea turtles are far larger than most freshwater turtles, growing to 250 pounds.
The legal notice says an existing seawall on Debordieu’s southern end already is blocking turtles from nesting, and the sandbag walls will do the same thing. The conservation league’s appeal takes the DHEC board to task for approving the sandbag walls in the name of science.
Two months ago, the board agreed to let the sandbag walls stay in place under a research exemption granted to Coastal Carolina’s Gayes, who wants to see what will happen if the bags are left in place and covered with sand.
But the Coastal Conservation League’s appeal questions the exemption, saying the exception won’t advance scientific knowledge and is an attempt to keep the sandbag walls in violation of state law.
“There is absolutely nothing new or experimental about putting sandbags on the beach or covering up those sandbags,’’ the appeal said. “What is new is the attempt to evade clear regulatory prohibitions and to raise experimental arguments to avoid complying with them.’’
Gayes told The State recently that he was not hired by the property owners at Debordieu, but instead he sought the research exemption as part of a larger study he is conducting on erosion along the Grand Strand.
“It’s a piece of the bigger question,’’ Gayes said.
This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 1:15 PM.
