COASTAL OBSERVER

Work is moving forward on a plan to dredge the Georgetown harbor, although the actual  work to deepen the channel is still more than a year away.

“To get to the dredging, we’ve got to do some studies and preliminary work,” said Mark Messersmith, the project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Charleston District.

Georgetown County Council last week approved a resolution taking responsibility as the non-federal sponsor of the project. That role had been filled by the state, which turned over 40 acres on the waterfront that had operated as a port since 1959 to the county last year. The county also got ownership of over 200 acres farther up the Sampit River that serve as a disposal site for material dredged from the harbor.

As the non-federal sponsor, the county has to provide the land for spoils disposal, provide access for the dredging project and investigate whether there is any hazardous waste in the project area.

“It doesn’t obligate them for funds,” Messersmith said.

That will come from the federal government. Last year, $6.5 million was included in the budget for the Georgetown harbor.

The Corps has evaluated the spoils site. It plans to clear vegetation from the spoils site in the middle of next year, Messersmith said.

“We’re about to award a contract for a consulting firm to evaluate the sediments,” he said.

A study commissioned by Georgetown County and completed in 2022 found that toxic material had settled in the sediment.

The study also showed that the depth of the channel was under 2 feet in some areas.

The shoaling has affected the recreational boats that use the harbor and even boats coming for the annual Georgetown Wooden Boat Show.

The Corps plans to dredge the channel from the mouth of the Sampit River at Winyah Bay, past the city’s waterfront to the port to a depth of 12 feet. That is the same depth maintained in the Intracoastal Waterway. The county hopes that the increased depth will provide barge access to its 948-acre industrial park upstream on the Sampit River.

“That is the great unknown,” Messersmith said of the environmental study. “I really don’t know what we’ll find out there.”

The results of the study will be known in three to four months, he said.

Preliminary options for the project call for dredging 380,000 to 415,000 cubic yards of material. By comparison, a renourishment project at Litchfield Beach in 2022 pumped 400,000 cubic yards of offshore sand onto the beach.

Messersmith said “$6.5 million doesn’t do a lot of dredging.”

The schedule calls for the dredging contract to be awarded at the end of 2025 with the work to start in early 2026. Since much of the cost is in getting the dredge to the site, setting it up and then breaking it down afterward, the schedule is flexible.”

The Corps will try to time the Georgetown work with other projects “to take advantage if there is a dredger working in the area,” Messersmith said.