When crews started digging on the south end of Pawleys Island in the first days of October, Pawleys Island Police Chief Mike Fanning drove down past the public parking lot to talk with the people already out there. According to the Coastal Observer, he warned anglers and dog walkers that they could end up on the Prince George side of the inlet. Several of them told the paper they hadn't heard about the project.
That warning sums up the change. The long, quiet walk south from the county lot, out to the tip where Pawleys Creek meets the ocean, is now a much shorter walk that ends at a new channel. A legal agreement also decides where that channel can sit, which is new for this stretch of beach.
The walk from the county lot got much shorter
For years the inlet kept moving south. In January the Coastal Observer reported it was about 3,200 feet south of the public parking lot on the island's south end, a lot owned by Georgetown County. By mid-October the new channel was about 750 feet south of that same lot.
| South end measure | Before the project | After the October cut |
|---|---|---|
| Inlet distance from the county parking lot | About 3,200 feet, January 2026 | About 750 feet, mid-October 2026 |
| Channel width | Natural channel, drifting south | Designed to widen to about 300 feet |
| Depth at low tide | Not specified | Expected around 5 feet |
In practical terms, the walk south of the lot is now roughly a quarter of what it was last winter. The town administrator, Dan Newquist, told the town that the project should have little effect on the island's south end and shouldn't close the public lot. The parking rules are the same as before. The town's beach access page lists the south-end county lot as a public access and says public beach accesses close to parking from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Where the old fishing spot went
The land south of the new channel is the part regulars knew best. In late September, as the work was about to begin, the Coastal Observer described the spit as a popular fishing spot that would become part of Prince George once the inlet moved.
The settlement money paid $1.3 million for 16.3 acres south of the parking lot. The buyer was PG Inlet Partners, the entity that holds the state and federal permits for the relocation. Crews took sand from the new channel and built a dike across Pawleys Creek, between the spit and Prince George, to push the creek's flow into the new opening. The creek bed that had been cutting into the dunes in front of Prince George's oceanfront houses is being filled with sand scraped from the intertidal beach.
The old tip of the island is now on the far side of a channel designed to widen to about 300 feet. It's also part of the dune and beach rebuilding at Prince George. Reed Goodman, who was out on a morning walk with his two rescue dogs on the first day of digging, described the old south end to the Coastal Observer as "a fantastic way to get away from the crowd and to be between the waters." The between-the-waters stretch is still there, but it's shorter.
The new channel runs fast
People started exploring the north side of the new inlet as soon as it was cut. Some came to fish, some to look for shells, and some just to see it. One of them, Edward Richardson, grew up in Georgetown and now lives off Waverly Road. He told the Coastal Observer, "Lord almighty, that is so cool," and remembered that when his father brought the family out years ago, the inlet "was right up to the road."
The channel had its first real test within a week. A weekend storm arrived with a spring tide and washed over the beach and creek, and the new inlet held. Steven Traynum, president of Coastal Science and Engineering, the firm that designed the project, told the town his team was "already seeing a new recurved spit growing into the excavated channel and no evidence of the channel moving to the north as it adjusts."
The water moving through it is strong. "It's unnerving to watch. The water's moving through there fast. Everybody's ignoring the signage," Town Council Member Mark Hawn said in the same report, adding that people were standing "a foot or two away and not paying attention." The storm also washed a smaller warning sign into the beach grass. The town plans to put up a rip-current sign at the inlet like the ones it installed on the north end last year.
Dog owners have more room in the off-season. The town's beach rules require a leash on dogs from May 1 to Sept. 30, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The town's dogs on the beach page says dogs are allowed year-round, as long as owners have a leash in hand, keep their dog under voice control, and pick up after it. In practice, an off-leash dog on a November walk south of the lot can now reach fast-moving water within about 750 feet. Before this fall, that water was more than half a mile away.
The corridor the inlet is supposed to stay in
The south end used to change on its own schedule. The new channel comes with a set of rules about where it can go.
The background starts with the town's 2020 renourishment project, which pumped 1.1 million cubic yards of offshore sand onto the beach. The first lawsuit was filed in 2022, after Pawleys Inlet had moved 300 feet south toward Prince George. Prince George owners and the Prince George Community Association later filed two more suits. The town, its contractors, and the state agencies involved denied responsibility but agreed to settle for $4 million. The Coastal Observer reported the shares as follows:
- Coastal Science and Engineering: $1.65 million
- Marinex, which did the renourishment work: $1.65 million
- The state Insurance Reserve Fund, covering the town and two state agencies: $600,000
- The Town of Pawleys Island: an additional $150,000
The agreement creates a 750-foot-wide "inlet management zone" at the southern tip. Prince George owners received approval to move the inlet once, and the town agreed to cooperate in keeping it inside that corridor, which will require new permits. Mayor Brian Henry put it simply: if the inlet moves north, the town pays to move it back south, and if it moves south, Prince George owners pay to move it north.
The inlet also becomes a sand source for the island. The town can take up to 100,000 cubic yards a year from the inlet for beach renourishment if needed, and Prince George owners have agreed not to object to future renourishment on the island. Under the settlement, any future renourishment project has to include provisions for moving the inlet back inside the management zone.
Not everyone is convinced the coastline can be held in place. Goodman, an environmental archaeologist with Clemson University's Baruch Institute on Hobcaw Barony, pointed the Coastal Observer to the historical maps. "That's part of a dynamic coast line," he said. "These places have to move."
What's still ahead at the south end
The channel is in place, and the sand work at Prince George has a few deadlines attached to it:
- The finish target: By mid-October, about 90,000 cubic yards of a planned 225,000 had been moved, and work at Prince George was expected to wrap up in early November.
- Nov. 30: The permit's cutoff. If the job isn't done by then, the contractor, Robert Collins Co., has to stop and pick up again next summer. The date is set to limit effects on shorebirds and marine plants and animals.
- The next three years: Annual monitoring tracks how the inlet responds, with reports on beach width, dune condition, and changes in sand volume.
- Five years: The permits from the state Bureau of Coastal Management and the Army Corps of Engineers are valid for five years.
Town Council meets on the second Monday of each month at 5 p.m. at Town Hall, 323 Myrtle Ave. The beach rules above are a general summary, not legal advice, and the town's own pages have the current wording.
At Peace Sotheby's International Realty, our roots are on this stretch of the Waccamaw Neck, and we follow changes like the new south end inlet the same way our neighbors do. If you'd like to talk about what the south end looks like now, or about a property nearby, we'd be glad to hear from you. Contact Us.
