Consultant Ken Willson of Coastal Protection Engineering (CPE) will present “preliminary findings” of the survey CPE conducted in June to assess the Southern Shores beaches at the Town Council’s Aug. 5 meeting, after which the Council will vote on approving the permitting and design of a 2027 nourishment project, according to Town Manager Cliff Ogburn at the Council’s July 8 meeting.
Mr. Ogburn reported last week that the Town Council will have to decide at the August meeting whether to sign a contract that will commit the Town of Southern Shores to participating in a “process of permitting and designing” that will culminate in a 2027 beach re-nourishment project.
Mr. Ogburn said this contract will be the same as the one the Town signed five years ago with CPE, which managed the 2022-23 beach nourishment project.
No one on the Town Council has thus far publicly expressed support for this five-year project, and there appears to be reluctance from some members to commit to it.
Nonetheless, the Council unanimously approved in June spending $22,635 to perform “pre-permitting” tasks and a “native beach sediment analysis” to determine the nature of the sand that would be needed in 2027.
“There’s a chance that we have what we need” on the beach now, Mayor Elizabeth Morey said last month, declining to “greenlight” a 2027 project, but not elaborating on her thoughts, either.
In April, Ms. Morey told The Beacon that she is not committed to doing beach nourishment to the extent it was done in 2022-23 every five years just as a matter of course. She said she would not “do” beach nourishment “just to be doing it.”
But the political pressure will be intense to do so. Dare County makes funds available to towns for beach nourishment on a five-year maintenance cycle, and towns depend on each other to share costs.
The 2022 beach nourishment project was a cooperative venture among the towns of Duck, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, and Southern Shores, who split the costs of mobilization and would look to do so again in 2027.
Mr. Ogburn advised the Council last week that the Town of Duck has already approved a project proposal from CPE and that Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills “are expected to approve similar proposals.”
We do not see the Southern Shores Town Council voting to except out of this project, regardless of the condition of the town’s beaches, but it may seek to narrow the scope of the re-nourishment.
The 2022 project covered the entire shoreline, despite CPE’s report that the sand on in the beach “profiles” north of Third Avenue was sufficient. The Town Council came up with the concept of a “sufficiently usable beach” in order to include the northern beaches in the project.
In simplest terms, a beach profile is a cross-section of the beach that extends from the dunes, across the dry-sand area, to an area submerged in the ocean. Much of the sand in a beach “profile” is not visible to the human eye, as was the case at the northern end of the Southern Shores shoreline.
Mr. Ogburn previously informed the Town Council that CPE’s beach monitoring report for 2025—which will be based on data collected last month at dozens of Southern Shores beach profiles —would be submitted in October. This will be CPE’s third-year post-nourishment report of “how sand is performing on the beach,” he said.
He also previously said that CPE’s formal proposal for the 2027 project’s design would be presented in “late fall.” (See The Beacon, 6/10/25.)
With Mr. Willson’s presentation of “preliminary findings” of the beach monitoring survey and CPE’s project contract, the decision-making timeline for the Town Council has been reduced by months.
The Town Council has not engaged in any substantive discussions publicly about the need for a second beach nourishment project in Southern Shores or the costs, especially to its constituents. Aside from the Mayor, no Council member has voiced an opinion.
Mr. Ogburn suggested last week that the 2027 project might be designed to last six or seven years, not just five. Looking at Southern Shores’ wide beaches today, we wonder why the 2022 project cannot last as long, and if the Town Council were to delay, what would be the financial consequences.
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We have been unable to attend Council meetings in person for quite some time and base our reporting on the You Tube videotapes.
Unfortunately, the videotape of the hourlong July 8 meeting stops short of the Town Council members’ reports, which occur at the end, so we did not hear Councilman Mark Batenic’s update from the Dare County Tourism Board and Mayor Pro Tem Matt Neal’s update on the Entry Corridor Enhancement Committee, assuming they both made them.
The Entry Corridor Committee will meet Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the Pitts Center.
The Town Planning Board is scheduled to meet Monday, July 21, at 5 p.m. in the Pitts Center. (UPDATE ON 7/15/25: The meeting has been canceled.)
We do not expect to attend the Town Council’s Aug. 5 meeting.
By Ann G. Sjoerdsma, The Southern Shores Beacon
The Southern Shores Beacon 