Posted on June 26, 2023
Georgetown County and city leaders are looking to make some economic and environmental advancements.
Dredging the inner harbor along Front Street in Georgetown’s Historic Waterfront has been a topic of discussion among leaders for years.
During a joint meeting on Tuesday, they discussed an update on where that project currently sits.
The Georgetown Harbor Walk is the hub of the city and reels in many benefits for the local economy.
“We have the whole Front Street area and that’s what we have defined as the working waterfront. If you walk down the Harbor Walk, you’ll see the restaurants, you’ll see the recreational vessels, you’ll see the shrimp boats. That’s been the mainstay of the Front Street community,” Tiffany Harrison, Georgetown County Economic Developer, said.
Harrison said the area relies on the maritime and tourist-driven economy created by the harbor, so dredging is crucial.
“So, the idea was that we would dredge to 12 feet mean low water. That’s to accommodate commercial fishing vessels, the shrimping industry, as well as recreational vessels. Those folks that have boats that want to be able to use the marinas and be able to utilize Front Street,” she said.
Harrison said this is a project they’ve looked at for years and they just finished surveying the harbor to understand what the siltation looked like.
“Now, it’s just very expensive. And so now it’s really how do we put together the funding in order to complete the dredge,” she said.
Harrison said the last time the inner harbor was dredged was in the early 2000s, and dredging it is important for many reasons.
“For continued job growth and tourism development, Georgetown has been discovered over the last few years. We have become a tourist destination, and have been for a long time, but for the last couple of years, we’ve seen increases in the number of visitors here. To have those opportunities to be able to enjoy the waterfront and experience it from a boat is going to be able to bring in new investment and new jobs,” she said.
At the meeting, they also talked about more than 40 acres of land gifted to the county by the South Carolina Port Authority.
