Posted on June 26, 2026
A long-awaited Georgetown harbor dredging project is set to begin next month, and the public will have a chance to learn details before it happens.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is partnering with Georgetown city and county leaders to host an informational session at 5:30 p.m. on June 30 at the South Carolina Maritime Museum.
“Maintaining safe and navigable waterways is critical to the economic vitality of Georgetown,” project manager Sonja Carter said in a news release. “This dredging project will remove significant underwater hazards, ensuring safe passage for both commercial and recreational boaters.”
Work is slated to begin in July and take less than three months, the Corps said.
Officials say the $3.5 million infrastructure work is necessary for several reasons:
- Accumulated sand and silt have reduced channel depths to less than five feet in some areas
- Dredging supports the Georgetown Port master plan to revitalize key industrial waterfront properties including the International Paper and Liberty Steel mills
Crews will restore channels to a 12-foot depth and remove roughly 390,000 cubic yards of material with an option to pull up to 170,000 additional cubic yards.
Collected debris will be taken to the Sampit Placement Area, and the project doesn’t require any ocean disposal.
The harbor’s entrance and inside channels haven’t been dredged since 2006 and 2008 respectively.
In April, Georgetown County picked Seamon Whiteside & Associates to create a port master plan.
The county acquired the waterfront property in 2023 from the S.C. State Ports Authority. Since then, leaders have been working to come up with a vision for redeveloping the property.
Officials said a completed master plan will be a tool to help guide decisions about the redevelopment of the site.
The plan will cover land use, infrastructure, environmental challenges and market feasibility, according to Kelly Robertson-Slagle, the county’s economic development director.
“For a complex waterfront redevelopment like the port, this ensures that public investment, private interest and long-term community outcomes are aligned from the outset,” Robertson-Slagle said.
Warren Waters, principal and founding member of River Development Equities, the New Jersey firm acquiring both the steel and paper mill sites, told The Post and Courier in March that the port property is a key part of his plans for the area.
“We believe the waterfront should be developed contiguously,” Waters said then. “It really should be a well-planned downtown.”
