01/30/2009
D
R
A
F
T
CSE
–S&W–DEW [DRAFT]
Accreted Land Management Plan
5
2253 [30 JANUARY 2009]
Town of Sullivan’s Island, SC
with the trolley stops that ran the length of the island around the end of the 19
th
century. [Note:
Sullivan’s Island is US Coast Guard Station 196, built in 1894-1895]. Street “stationing” in-
creases from the west end to the east end of the island.
Sullivan’s Island is ~3.1 miles long, bounded by Breach Inlet at the east end and by Charleston
Harbor along its west end*. The shoreline between Fort Moultrie (~Station 14) and Station 29
encompasses about 14,000 ft of oceanfront. Accretion since the mid 1900s has added about
190 acres of high ground between developed property and the present seaward edge of vege-
tation line.
[*In this report, east and west are adopted as the primary alignment of the oceanfront. There are common
references in the literature to sand moving from “north to south” along the South Carolina coast. A truer
orientation for Sullivan’s Island would be from east-northeast to west-southwest as illustrated in Figure 1.1.]
For purposes of the present study, the Team evaluated conditions from Breach Inlet to Fort
Moultrie, including sand bars associated with the inlet. The landward limit of the study is gen-
erally Atlantic Avenue, the seawardmost access road paralleling the beach. Much of the data
in the report is referenced to a survey control line along Middle Street (main access road along
the island). Using engineering nomenclature, control line transects begin at 0+00 (western tip
of the island) and extend to Breach Inlet (190+00). It is easy to estimate distances with this
system by simply omitting the “+” sign. For example, transect 50+00 is ~5,000 ft from the
western tip of the island; transect 85+35 would be ~8,535 ft from the western tip, etc. Because
the survey control line wraps around the west end of the island and is positioned about 1,000
ft inland, its length will not exactly match the oceanfront lengths. Nevertheless, the control line
provides a necessary reference for evaluating historical changes and dividing the shoreline
into discrete lengths (“reaches”) having similar features.
The majority of beachgoers at Sullivan’s Island access the beach by way of paths through the
AL study area which begin at each street end. Some paths, such as Station 16, are wide
enough for the passage of emergency vehicles; however, most are narrow footpaths (Fig 1.2).
Swales between some dune ridges are wet much of the time with standing water and asso-
ciated “wetlands” vegetation. The western half of the study area is heavily forested, whereas
the eastern half has less-mature vegetation.