The Senate vote effectively moved $5 million back into the 2005 state budget that will be combined with $3.2 million the state had already set aside to slow island beach erosion from 15 feet a year to about 6 feet a year.
"It's new life for Hunting Island," state Rep. Catherine Ceips, R-Beaufort, said Thursday.
Sanford's message attached to his Tuesday veto of the Hunting Island funding said that money spent on nourishment would be wasted if a hurricane were ever to hit.
But that logic was hard for most legislators to accept.
"The state owns the park, so let's take care of it," Ceips said. "It's a no-brainer."
The governor's veto also cited state law that calls for allowing erosion along undeveloped coasts.
Roberta Gunderson, president of Friends of Hunting Island, said the governor didn't properly consider the value of the beach, which pulls in more than 1 million visitors a year. Money raised at Hunting Island is used to support the state park system.
"A lot of (thought) in the Senate is the idea of renourishment," said state Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island. "It's (Beaufort County) today, but it could be Myrtle Beach, Estill or someone else tomorrow. Tourism is important in South Carolina, and it's important that we support that."
The nearly five-year road to find the $5 million for beach protection has been a long one for island supporters.
The money was first expected to come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a match to the state's $3.2 million.
After state officials abandoned hope for the federal dollars, the House tried to take $5 million from the state's land-buying program, a move shot down in the Senate.
At that point, Ceips called Gunderson and told her to bring public support to Columbia.
Eight members of Friends of Hunting Island talked to as many House and Senate members as they could and left handouts detailing the park's problems for every legislator.
"I think we truly got into their consciousness the seriousness of the problem and the value of Hunting Island to the entire state," Gunderson said.
The legislature found money in the general budget for the project, but the governor said the project wasn't a smart investment for the state and struck it from the 2005 spending plan. But the legislature took advantage of its ability to disagree with Sanford.
"We can probably go ahead this fall as soon as turtle season is over," Gunderson said of the beach project.
The delay would allow for loggerhead sea turtles to finish nesting along the beach before the park installs five groins, or sand-trapping structures, perpendicular to the beach to protect camp sites, cabins and the lighthouse, which sits just a few hundred feet from the water at high tide.
Park officials have noted that nourishment will only slow beach erosion, not prevent it, and Beaufort County Council members have said that the state and the county need to work together for a long-term solution.
"In another few years we're going to be at crisis mode again," said council Chairman Weston Newton.