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Editor’s note: Updated on August 13, 2024 at 1:15 p. m. August 11, 2024 at 7:10 p. m. : This story has been updated to include data on the intensity of the Florida aquifer.
Local counties have been working to make sure EV maker Hyundai receives the water Georgia promised it to produce cars on the coast of Georgia. In two meetings convened in late June, Bulloch County agreed to work with neighboring Bryan County to provide water and sewer facilities and establish a well mitigation fund program.
The speed of local decision-making related to this critical herbal resource worries many local residents. Meanwhile, uncertainty around the development of regional water resources plans has increased the risk of legal action.
Trip Tollison, president and CEO of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, spoke to The Current about the conceptual procedure behind the plan, which still wants to get final state approval for four new wells in Bulloch County to supply Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America with approximately 6. 6 million gallons of water per day.
“Basically, we had to do it to meet Hyundai’s schedule,” Tollison said.
However, Metaplant, which plans to start generating cars off-line by the end of 2024, will only use a small percentage of the permitted quantities for the foreseeable future.
Tollison said the Metaplant campus has enough water from an on-site well to meet its needs in its initial release phase, which is about 335,000 gallons per day. But through the second quarter of 2025, Georgia has promised to supply about 6. 5 times as much. : 2. 15 million gallons per day, according to Angela Hendrix, senior vice president of marketing and public relations for the Savannah Economic Development Authority.
This will require at least two of Bulloch County’s wells to be operational through April. None of them have yet obtained a final permit. (Read the draft permit for Bulloch here and Bryan here). The state Division of Environmental Protection has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed lease for Aug. 13 at Southeast Bulloch High School.
The wells are planned for a domain in Bulloch County, just across the line from Bryan County. They will drill there because the state has limited pumping at Bryan, which is in the state’s “yellow zone” of reducing groundwater use. This is the case of Bulloch, which is located in the “green zone”.
Hyundai’s pledge to keep running water supply as planned has heightened the sense of urgency when it comes to permitting.
“We ran out of time,” Tollison said.
Bulloch citizens and farmers who rely on groundwater for drinking and irrigation fear the new wells will deplete existing ones. In response, regulators proposed a mitigation measure: a fund to protect personal well owners if their water source is affected.
Hyundai will not pay the maximum of the planned mitigation fund of $1 million; Georgian taxpayers will do so through the regional progression authorities. Bulloch County Development Authority; Bryan County Development Authority; and the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority, known as the Joint Development Authority, agreed to make a contribution of $250,000 each.
“The hope is that others will contribute to that million dollars,” Hendrix said.
That hope was realized on Aug. 13, when the JDA announced in a press release that Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America would contribute $250,000 to the fund.
Bryan County will manage the fund on behalf of Bryan and Bulloch counties and hire a representative to prepare policies, eligibility guidelines, processes and public data materials, all of which will be completed this year, according to the news release from the JDA.
The Bulloch County Development Authority approved its investment last month, payable from its reserves, Executive Director Benjy Thompson said. The Bryan County Development Authority approved $250,000 for the mitigation fund on Aug. 13. The Joint Development Authority held an emergency board meeting via Zoom on Aug. 8 to approve its contribution to the fund.
The JDA reached an agreement in principle, but only after a tense assembly in which Chairman Carter Infinger, chairman of the Bryan County Commission, failed to respond to board members’ questions about how the cash would be managed, distributed and ultimately returned. JDA if not needed.
Chester Ellis, board member and chairman of the Chatham County Commission, objected to the lack of voting and the rush.
“Why do we vote on something that you can’t and we don’t know?. . . . (You) just need us to come here, say yes and move on,” Ellis told Infinger during the meeting.
Roy Thompson, board member and chairman of the Bulloch County Commission, warned that “all hell will break loose” if the authority does not approve the cash well mitigation fund before a public meeting in Bulloch scheduled for Tuesday to collect public comments on the project. well if permitted.
“I know those citizens that EPD is going to face are going to get angry, and if we don’t have something, we’re going to have a problem,” Thompson said.
In the end, the JDA board approved the $250,000, but made the release of the budget contingent on the approval of policies that will be set and voted on at an Aug. 29 meeting. Chester Ellis is the only one who voted no. He remained frustrated after the meeting.
“Why didn’t we know last month that we needed to do this? »She said. “It is because we do not provide enough data to those of us who are responsible to our citizens. ”
Before Thursday’s meeting, the JDA had not met in three months, Ellis said. Board member Steve Green called for normalcy Thursday.
“We call an assembly when there is a situation close to emergency, and I know that many things are happening, but don’t you think that the members of the board of directors deserve to be informed?” he asked.
Not all the data shared at Thursday’s assembly is accurate. When members asked how long the entry permits were issued, Infinger replied, “It’s for 25 years. “No one has corrected it. But the draft license states that “(C)his license will expire ten (10) years from the date of issuance of this license. “
The EPD evolved into the expectation that existing personal wells would have the maximum likelihood of being affected by Hyundai’s new wells. Regulators presented their findings in the form of an interactive map at a public meeting in February in Bulloch County and provided a copy on the EPD’s website.
To fully use the map, it was necessary to download Google Earth, a procedure that was tedious for many users. The Current has created a simplified edition of the map, which can be found below.
EPD hydrologist Bill Frechette reiterated in an email to The Current that Bulloch County’s new wells are not expected to have a serious impact on existing wells. EPD officials say no wells will run dry.
“We believe that although there is possibly a drop in water points, no well will dry up unless the pump itself is installed too close to the surface without sufficient protection/insurance, it will not be incorporated,” Frechette wrote. “Let’s say a well with an existing well If the pump is installed two hundred feet below the surface of the floor, right at the existing water point, that well will evidently have challenges when the water drops to 219 feet deep. But this can be constant by simply resetting the pumping point by reducing the depth of the pump. The well below the new water point and with sufficient integrated damper moves the pump 275 feet and the water problem disappears. There is no need to drill a deeper well.
Tollison said there are a handful of agricultural wells within the eight-kilometer radius of the mitigation fund.
“We have three agricultural wells on the domain that we check further to make sure they’re working properly,” Tollison said. “That’s why I was surprised by this figure. I thought there would be more agricultural wells. I feel like we’re doing the right thing by creating the mitigation fund. And this doesn’t just apply to agricultural customers, but also to homeowners. In fact, these (domestic) wells are not as expensive or as technical as an agricultural well. Agricultural wells absorb a lot of water.
The wells that supply water to Hyundai will draw water from the Florida aquifer, which lies many feet deep in Bulloch County and is covered by a layer of clay. Many of Bulloch’s domestic wells draw water from much shallower aquifers that share a percentage of water with Florida. Regulators hope those domestic wells will not be affected by the new wells.
Christine Voudy, an EPD geologist, said the intensity of a residential area indicates the aquifer it feeds on.
“Anywhere between 150 and 400 feet, depending on where you are in Bulloch County, will tell you if you’re in the Florida aquifer,” he said at a Bulloch town hall meeting in February, showing a map of the depths of the Florida aquifer. If there’s a bigger broker than that, not in Florida. “
Florida’s aquifers offer a transient way to bring water to the giant plant until a long-term solution can be implemented. This 25-year plan will likely involve drawing millions of additional gallons of water per day from the Savannah River. But it’s not as undeniable as sticking a pipe in the river.
River water requires more treatment than well water, which is better protected from all types of contaminants. Savannah water officials have long boasted that Savannah’s well water, which comes from the Florida aquifer, is safe to drink from the source and only needs a disinfectant to keep it white when drunk. your adventure through the pipes. On the other hand, making river water drinkable will require a major modernization of the region’s surface water treatment infrastructure.
Another option is to drill wells in the Cretaceous aquifer, under the Floridan. But its water is not only deeper, but also saltier, which makes it more expensive to use. Tybee Island, which is in the red zone, attempted to drill a Cretaceous well. However, drilling went awry in 2016 and he abandoned the project.
Officials thought about going directly to the river to meet Hyundai’s water needs, but ultimately rejected that option, Tollison said. It was less expensive and faster to use well water.
Surface water would come from the Savannah Domestic and Industrial Water Treatment Plant on Highway 21 in Port Wentworth, requiring upgrades and new transmission lines to northern Bryan County. He estimated the charge at between $470 million and $480 million. The 4 wells and transmission lines are expected to cost between $115 million and $118 million, a savings of about $362 million.
“We can’t forget about that,” Tollison said.
The savings represent 4. 8% of the $7. 59 billion investment promised through Hyundai in the plant.
And the wells are about seven years faster.
“To get water from Bulloch County to the Hyundai plant in North Bryan, it takes about 3 years to get the permit, the design, everything you want to do, the easements. To get the water to the site, Bryan wants a contract of about 3 years,” Tollison said. “It takes about 10 years to get him out of Savannah. “
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