Coast Watch: Holden Beach Says “No” to Terminal Groin
A coastal North Carolina town which once asked for a beach-killing “terminal groin” has changed its mind.
Last week, the Holden Beach Town Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to withdraw the town’s permit application to build a “terminal groin” at the east end of the island. The commissioners’ adopted resolution said that “the total costs to the Town, its citizens and visitors of the proposed Lockwood Folly Inlet Terminal Groin greatly outweigh the potential benefits thereto, both financially and otherwise.”
The so-called “terminal groins” are massive rock structures built out from the ocean shore through the surf line, perpendicular to the shoreline. They can act to temporarily trap sand being carried in the longshore currents, but when they do so, they also normally act to “starve” the down-current side of that same transported sand. They can also result in increased wave action scouring behind the groin. Coastal environment advocates vigorously oppose the structures.
With last week’s vote, Holden Beach became the first North Carolina town to withdraw a terminal groin permit application since 2011, when the General Assembly adopted a partial revocation of the state’s decades-old ban on such oceanfront “beach hardening” structures. The town withdrew its application after spending more than $600,000 studying how to best address shoreline changes on the town’s oceanfront.
NC Coastal Federation executive director Todd Miller praised the town’s decision to abandon the terminal groin application, calling such structures “destructive” as well as “extremely expensive and not guaranteed to work.”
