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The $4.6 million renourishment project is expected to wrap up in May.

Work has begun on giving Wrightsville Beach fresh sand for the tourist season.

But the beach renourishment project could mean a few weeks of inconvenience for beachgoers as pipes snake up to the island from Masonboro Inlet.

Last weekend, crews from Weeks Marine of Camden, N.J., started pumping 750,000 cubic yards of sand from Masonboro Inlet and Banks Channel onto the beach.

The work follows the pumping of 500,000 cubic yards of sand onto nearby Masonboro Island.

Unlike other communities that must worry about how to replenish slowly disappearing strands, Wrightsville Beach is guaranteed a renourishment project every four years.

Carolina Beach and Kure Beach in New Hanover County and Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County are the only other communities in the state guaranteed periodic beach boosters by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The $4.6 million project, which should wrap up in early June, will eventually renourish the beach from just south of the Blockade Runner resort to near the Holiday Inn SunSpree resort.

Currently, about 12,500 feet of pipe runs along the beachfront from the dredge R.S. Weeks in the inlet to near Latimer Street.

To help maintain beach access as the project progresses, crews are installing walkovers every few hundred feet.

Corps spokeswoman Christie Bruske said beachgoers shouldn’t try to jump the pipe where there isn’t a crossing or try to reach the ocean immediately in front of the pipe discharge area.

“That area is roped off and people should try to avoid getting inside that area,” she said, noting that heavy equipment will be operating there.

Beach walkways near the discharge area are now closed and will reopen and close as work progresses, Ms. Bruske added.

While federal taxpayers are picking up the tab for the renourishment work on Masonboro Island, the cost of the project on Wrightsville Beach is split between the federal, state and county governments.

The local share of the project cost is $157,500. The money comes from New Hanover County’s 3 percent sales tax on hotel rooms and short rentals.

Tax revenues are divided between beach renourishment projects and the Cape Fear Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau.