Water quality and quantity have become barometers for the Savannah area’s population and industrial growth, a statewide watchdog group noted in a report released Thursday.
“Metro Atlanta has long been Georgia’s poster child for out-of-control and poorly managed growth, and the region’s unbridled thirst for water sparked a more than three-decade water conflict with neighboring states over the use of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers,” the Georgia Water Coalition noted in its 13th annual Dirty Dozen report. “Today, Georgia’s water conflicts have gone coastal.”
The organization cited the impact of residential and industrial development on two of the Savannah region’s primary sources of drinking water: the Floridan Aquifer and Abercorn Creek.
Out of sight but not out of mind
Overwhelming local demand on the aquifer ― part of a 100,000-square-mile underground water source covering all of Florida and portions of Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi ― led to the intrusion of saltwater near Savannah and prompted the state environmental officials to cap withdrawals in 2008.
The limits covered Chatham, Bryan, Liberty and a portion of Effingham counties.
Now, proposed wells to be drilled in Bulloch County ― which is not subject to the state limits ― would pump up to 6.6 million gallons of water from the aquifer per day to serve Hyundai Motor Company’s electric-vehicle manufacturing complex in neighboring Bryan County along with ancillary industrial development.
The depth of the aquifer could drop by as much as 19 feet near the wells, and private wells could decline by up to 15 feet, according to projections from the Georgia Department of Environmental Resources.
The potential impact within a 5-mile radius of the Hyundai facility prompted EPD to include the protection of property owners among conditions tied to state permits for the new wells. Under the provisions, Bryan and Bulloch counties will be required to establish a fund to help well owners who experience “unreasonable impacts” related to the increased extraction.
The available pool is expected to start at $500,000, Savannah Economic Development Authority President and CEO Trip Tollison said this week.
"Both Bulloch and Bryan (counties) are working on the fund parameters,” he added.
However, the mere existence of the fund illustrates that the new wells were ill advised from the start, Ogeechee Riverkeeper Damon Mullis said in nominating the Floridan for the Georgia Water Coalition’s list.
“The underground aquifer doesn’t stop at the county line, nor do impacts from new water pumps,” Mullis wrote. “Bryan County leaders’ solution, however, has been to simply tap the aquifer just outside the boundary of the moratorium and transfer it into their water-limited area. The (6.6) million gallon a day suck from the Floridan aquifer needed to meet demands of the Hyundai plant and associated development will only threaten nearby domestic and agricultural wells while increasing the likelihood of more saltwater intrusion.”
Abercorn Creek
The Effingham County tributary to the Savannah River has been an intake point for Savannah’s drinking water since 1948.
But in 2018, after determining that the Port of Savannah’s latest deepening of its shipping channel could potentially lead to saltwater reaching the Abercorn intake, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required that construction of a $43.5 million, 97-million-gallon reservoir adjacent to the creek be part of the project.
The 17-acre impoundment, between Interstate 95 and Georgia Highway 21 near Port Wentworth's Rice Hope neighborhood – acts as a backup source if saltwater reaches the intake.
The port’s potential impact on the Abercorn goes beyond the channel deepening, however. An explosion of warehouses to serve the still-expanding facility threatens the future of the creek, the Georgia Water Coalition said in its report.
"In 2022, Effingham County approved the construction of 1.1 million square feet of warehouses near Savannah’s water intake on Abercorn Creek, sparking protests from the city and clean water advocates alike,” the coalition noted. “The warehouses ultimately were built, but only after Effingham County appeased the City of Savannah by requiring builders to install stormwater controls aimed at mitigating the impacts of the big-box development.”
Protecting Abercorn: Development next to Chatham, Effingham, Bryan counties' water intake back on the table
In a 2023 update to its Source Water Assessment Plan , the city reported that Abercorn Creek's "contaminant susceptibility" level climbed from "low" in 2002 to "medium" in 2019 to "medium high" in 2022 due to "the rapid turnover of forest land to warehousing."
A city spokesman did not respond to questions about updated data.
With the influx of Hyundai’s planned 8,500 employees ― and workers for the suppliers that follow the South Korean automaker ― the area also is primed for unprecedented residential development.
Jenifer Hilburn, north coast advocate for the organization One Hundred Miles, noted that the Coastal Georgia Regional Water Planning Council ― whose members are appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and Georgia House speaker ― updated a multicounty water plan last year.
But Hilburn, who nominated Abercorn Creek for the Dirty Dozen designation, said this week that the document already is outdated.
"The plan was based on data from 2017 and (earlier) and did not adequately take into consideration the secondary growth and impacts of the port expansion or the Hyundai mega-site and the ravenous consumption of trees, wetlands and residential and agricultural lands converted into industrial concrete,” she said in an email. “Georgians need the council to either create a sub-regional plan for the northern coastal counties that reflects the impacts and uses of rapid growth considerations and/or update the 2023 plan with recent and relevant data that includes the land transformation and water needs of the area.”
In 2022, Abercorn Creek supplied 14.5 billion gallons for industrial, commercial and residential customers in Chatham, Bryan and Effingham counties, according to city data. That accounted for 21% of the city's total water use, up from just 3% in 2020.
Mullis and Hilburn both reiterated their earlier opposition to state legislation passed in March that allows private companies to install and manage their own water systems to serve coastal areas not reached by municipal systems.
Statewide impact
While Georgia is experiencing an economic boom fueled largely by clean-energy-related projects, that success “is not without its consequences,” Georgia Water Coalition member Joe Cook said with the release of Thursday’s report.
“When we fail to plan for growth, when we don’t enforce existing laws to protect our water resources and when we provide anemic funding for the state agency charged with protecting the state’s natural resources, economic development inevitably impacts those resources upon which we all depend,” Cook said.
Other waters cited in the report included the Savannah, Ogeechee, Flint, Conasauga, Coosa and Altamaha rivers, as well as the Okefenokee Swamp.
John Deem covers climate change and the environment in coastal Georgia. He can be reached at jdeem@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Industry, residential development threaten Savannah's drinking water sources, report says
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