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The $706 million deepening of Savannah’s harbor is scheduled to start in September – three months earlier than expected.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Gov. Nathan Deal’s office said last week that workers will begin to dredge the outer edge of the 38-mile channel on Sept. 7 instead of December, when the project was initially expected to start.
The agency also announced it has granted a nearly $100 million contract to a Florida company to pump oxygen into the Savannah River harbor, which suffers from low oxygen levels. The work is part of an out-of-court settlement with conservationists and considered crucial to offset the project’s environmental impact.
Other work to set the stage for the dredging is well underway. Deal’s office said a key section of a weighty ironclad vessel called the CSS Georgia that defended the city during the Civil War is to be raised from the river’s depths on Saturday. That work will bring up a bulky casemate, which housed the boat’s artillery pieces, that remains deep
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beneath the water’s surface.
Deal said the developments are a sign that the dredging project is shifting into high gear. The project, which will deepen Savannah’s harbor and waterway from 42 feet to 47 feet, has been in the works for more than a decade and has united Georgia politicians of all stripes.
For more of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution story: politics.blog.ajc.com
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