Posted on April 3, 2018
By Mary Landers, savannahnow.com
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed the construction of a 97-million-gallon drinking water reservoir Savannah will need as a result of harbor deepening.
The $43.5 million structure that sits between I-95 and Ga. 21 near Port Wentworth’s Rice Hope neighborhood is now being tested.
“We’re filling it and dropping it, filling and dropping,” said Corps Spokesman Billy Birdwell. “That is something you do for dams … And this is essentially a dam.”
The corps expects to hand over the reservoir to Savannah for maintenance and operation, likely beginning in the summer. Savannah expects yearly operational costs to be about $500,000, confirmed Heath Lloyd, Savannah’s chief infrastructure and development officer.
The 17-acre impoundment – about half the size of Forsyth Park — is needed because deepening the river to 47 feet will occasionally allow water with higher chloride levels to reach the city’s water intakes on Abercorn Creek, a tributary of the Savannah River. It can deliver 62.5 million gallons of water per day.
While the chloride levels aren’t expected to exceed federal clean drinking water standards, saltier water is more corrosive. That’s worrisome because it eats away at pipes, leaching dangerous lead and copper into drinking water. Several local industries are also concerned that higher chloride levels would interfere with their manufacturing processes. Savannah plans to avoid that situation by storing high quality water for use when the combination of high tides and low river flow – typically a summertime issue – make water at the intake undesirable.
“It meets the needs that the city might face in the event of a simultaneous drought river flow and exceptionally high tide,” Birdwell said. “It will provide the city with at least two days-worth of water for the 12-hours or so of high tides.”
Birdwell noted that the reservoir’s capacity is higher than its daily yield because it’s not desirable to draw it down completely. Nor would it be necessary.
“Remember, high tides last only a few hours and peak tides less than that,” he said. “In between peak tides the (reservoir) is refilled. Therefore, its daily yield is more than sufficient to keep chlorides at the current level.”
The corps contracted with Thalle Construction Company of Hillsborough, N.C., for the work.
While the cost to build the reservoir is included in harbor deepening’s nearly $1 billion price tag, ratepayers will be picking up the tab for the ongoing maintenance and operation of the reservoir. Those ratepayers include industrial customers as well as Savannah and municipalities that buy water from Savannah, including Pooler, Garden City, Port Wentworth, Thunderbolt, Vernonburg, and Effingham and Bryan counties.
Residents of Rice Hope fought a losing battle to control construction traffic while the reservoir was being built, beginning in March 2016. Larry Longo, a resident and member of the Port Wentworth Planning Commission, recalled dump trucks lining up three or four deep to turn left onto Ga. 21 without the benefit of a traffic light.
“Traffic never got resolved,” he said. “They just stonewalled us.”
With construction complete, Longo continues to advocate for beautification of the gravel road that leads into the site and removal of the construction signs along Lakeside Boulevard, the “main drag” of the development. He’d like to see the first 100 feet of the gravel road paved and landscaped to soften the view from his neighborhood. He estimates the cost at about $12,000 – $15,000, or about .03 percent of the total reservoir project cost. His requests to the corps haven’t yet been successful.
“It’s me against the federal government,” he said. “You know how that goes.”
Source: savannahnow
