Just a year and a half after completing a $1 billion project to deepen Savannah Harbor from 42 feet to 47 feet, the Georgia Ports Authority is launching another deepening plan.
The agency is asking U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Savannah, and Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, to seek congressional authorization for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study the economic and environmental impacts of another deepening project. The study would be funded next year through legislation reauthorizing the Water Resources Development Act as well as some non-federal funds.
The earlier deepening project, which took 25 years to navigate bureaucratic red tape and build, was designed to accommodate containerized-cargo ships with capacities of up to 8,200 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
However, vessels with capacities of more than 16,000 TEUs are now calling at the Port of Savannah. Ships that big can’t make it up the Savannah River to the port at low tide, causing delays that make the port less productive.
Once the study is completed and if it green lights the project, Congress would be asked to fund construction.
Griff Lynch, the ports authority’s executive director, did not mention the deepening project at Thursday’s annual State of the Ports luncheon updating state and regional business and political leaders on other planned improvements at the ports of Savannah and Brunswick. However, he acknowledged the request to study the implications of another deepening project during remarks to reporters after his luncheon speech.