System pumping dissolved oxygen in water expected to keep harbor expansion on track

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTGS FOX 28) — The US Army Corps of Engineers have been testing a dissolved oxygen injection system on Hutchinson Island for the past two months.

The dredging from the Savannah Harbor Expansion project decreases the oxygen content in the water. That’s a problem for species living in the Savannah River that need the oxygen to survive.

A spokesperson for the Corps of Engineers in Savannah, Russell Wicke, said there are some endangered species that fall under that category.

“Two of the main ones that get a lot of attention are the short-nosed and the Atlantic sturgeon. They’re both endangered fish,” he said.

The dissolved oxygen injection system takes water from the river and oxygen from the air around it. The two are infused together and pumped back out into the water to increase the oxygen contents. They’ve been pumping 12,000 pounds of dissolved oxygen back into the water each day.

The operations manager, Jonathan Broadie, said this is a very unique system.

“To combine the oxygen generators we have and the Speece cones and the size of pumps, there’s nothing like that in the world, so it’s really unique, it’s a one of a kind facility,” he said.

The construction of the facility was done in March. That’s when they started to test it.

“Something like this has never been done at this scale before so we had to take 60 days to test it to see how it worked,” said Wicke.

The preliminary results show the system is performing better than anticipated, according to Wicke.

“Not only does it look like it’s going out where it needs to go but we’re also finding that we can track it much further and much longer than we expected,” said Wicke.

They used red dye to track where it goes and it’s going further and deeper in the water than they expected.

“It stays in the water, it’s not bubbling out and turning back into the air once we put it in,” said Wicke.

This is all to minimize the environmental impacts from the project that’s deepening the Savannah harbor five feet. These results are a good thing because it keeps the expansion project on track.

“We’ve already completed the outer harbor but before we can complete the inner harbor, we have to demonstrate that this system works the way our model says it would work,” said Wicke.

The initial results indicate the system is a success. However, once the data is looked at more in depth, a full report will be released in August.

“If all goes on schedule, we will be dredging the inner harbor at the end of September,” said Wicke.

The system at the injection plant is taking a pause on their operations until the data is reviewed and the findings are released. It will start back up once that’s completed.

_{Source: fox28media.com}