In his veto letter to the legislature, the governor cited several reasons -- including the environmental dangers of renourishment and a state law that calls for naturalism -- why he thinks "renourishment on Hunting Island is not the kind of investment that our state should be making."
The money for Hunting Island State Park was one of 105 vetoes the House quickly overturned Wednesday. According to state Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, the Senate may start overriding the vetoes today.
"The governor went wholesale after everyone," Richardson said of the vetoes. "The sentiment right now is that we're going to override a good number of those."
Rep. Catherine Ceips, R-Beaufort, worked quickly Wednesday to overturn the veto and said she would "appeal to (senators) to save the beach."
With $3.2 million in state money earmarked for the project, the additional $5 million would complete funding for a project to help slow the beach's erosion rate from 15 feet a year to 6 feet a year, according to park officials. The project would add sand to the beach and build groins to protect against erosion.
In his veto letter, Sanford partly explained his decision by saying a major hurricane would "completely wipe out a nourishment project such as this."
But protecting a beach from storm damage is one of the main goals of nourishment, said Chris Brooks, deputy commissioner for the state Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management.
"The best protection from a storm would be a healthy, wide beach," Brooks said.
Richardson also questioned some of Sanford's reasoning.
In rejecting the Hunting Island project, the governor also cited a state law that calls for allowing natural erosion in areas where structures are not endangered. Brooks, however, said the law does not apply to Hunting Island.
"We're not talking about a nature preserve," he said. "We're talking about a state park."
The governor's concerns about the environmental implications of building groins also are unfounded, Brooks said.
Groins are sand-trapping structures built perpendicular to the beach that are intended to ward off erosion. But there is debate over whether they merely shift erosion down the coast without protecting the target beach.
"That's just not going to happen with a well-engineered project," Brooks said.
He said in order for the park to continue being successful, there needs to be a stable solution to its beach erosion.
"One thing is clear, the longer we wait the more expensive the solution will be," he said.
Marion Edmonds, spokesman for the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, said the department will follow the governor's lead on the issue.
With few of the state's parks generating a profit, the $600,000 Hunting Island collects from retail sales, camping, cabins and admission fees goes to other state parks that are maintained at a loss.
"(Sanford) didn't question the dollars and cents of Hunting Island," Edmonds said, "but the broader philosophical question of renourishment."
Will Folks, the governor's spokesman, said the state "should pursue federal funding instead of state dollars that are stretched increasingly thin."
Park officials who have worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get federal funds have said money from Washington seems unlikely.
Bill Eiser, an oceanographer for the state, said South Carolina gave an average of $2.5 million every year during the 1990s to help pay for nourishment projects on Myrtle and Folly beaches and Sullivans and Pawleys islands. But recent state budget problems have curtailed new nourishment money.
Hilton Head Island received more than $6 million from the state toward a $9 million beach nourishment in 1990. The town's last beach nourishment, at a cost of $9 million in 1997, was paid for using money collected from a local 2 percent tax on overnight lodging. The island's next $15 million renourishment project, to begin in 2005, also will be paid for with the tax money.
"We do that because of the uncertainty in ever finding state funds again," town administrator Steve Riley said.