Taxpayers are being asked to spend at least $72 million on “bubblers” that pump oxygen into the Savannah River to prevent fish from dying once the river and port are deepened to accommodate ever-larger container ships.But the technology has never been used on such a massive scale. Environmentalists and some government officials question whether the oxygen machines will work as planned.
The effectiveness of the “bubblers” - more formally known as mechanical respirators or Speece cones - has emerged as a key issue as South Carolina and Georgia officials trying to iron out a settlement over whether, and how much, the river should be deepened.Although the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington has signed off on a 47-foot river depth, environmentalists and S.C. officials continue a legal battle against that plan.
One proposal, according to people with direct knowledge of the negotiations, and floated by deepening opponents: go ahead and install the "bubblers" for a trial period. If they work — S.C. officials are convinced they won't — then the Army Corps and Georgia can go ahead and dig the river to 47 feet. The outcome is of great importance to metro Atlanta, which reaps roughly $30 billion a year in economic impact from the public and private ports of Savannah and Brunswick, a University of Georgia study says.
A federal judge has ordered Georgia, South Carolina and federal officials to hash out a harbor deepening agreement. The talks started last month, but the two sides remain far apart, those familiar with the negotiations say. All parties to the mediation have been prohibited from talking publicly about the ongoing negotiations.
Georgia taxpayers already are on the hook for $180 million of the deepening project’s $652 million cost and Gov. Nathan Deal is expected to soon ask legislators for another $50 million. The rest is supposed to come from Washington.Deal, as well as ports and Army Corps officials, has said any environmental damage done by deepening the Savannah River by five feet will be satisfactorily mitigated. The Corps’ mitigation plans have long included bubblers that are supposed to push oxygen to the bottom of the river.
Georgia port experts label the bubbler trial proposal as nothing more than South Carolina’s latest attempt to stall or thwart the deepening. “It’s not the environmental question that they’re really concerned with,” said Al Scott, a former Georgia Ports Authority chairman. “Their concern is that the Savannah port has outgrown the Charleston port two-fold (the last decade). They’re trying to slow the growth of the Savannah port, in a nutshell.”
In 2001, Charleston handled more steel containers than Savannah. In 2011, though, nearly 3 million containers were imported into or exported from Savannah — more than twice the amount of Charleston. Environmentalists on both sides of the Savannah River, which separates the two states, have been joined by S.C. legislators in challenging the legality of the deepening. One lawsuit contends the Army Corps needs a pollution discharge permit from South Carolina. The Southern Environmental Law Center says that toxic cadmium will be dumped on the S.C. side of the river as a result of the dredging of 38 miles of river and ocean bottom.
In addition, irreparable harm will be done to endangered shortnose sturgeon and other aquatic life, environmentalists say, by scooping out five feet of river muck. “The Corps proposes to exacerbate already severe and unnaturally low levels of dissolved oxygen in the river and to mitigate for these impacts by using a host of mechanical respirators … to inject super-oxygenated water into the river,” the environmental group wrote last June in response to the Corps’ environmental review. “The Corps has failed to demonstrate that this mitigation measure will be effective.”
In addition to making it harder for oxygen to reach the bottom, a deeper river will allow saltwater to travel farther upriver, hampering its natural intake of oxygen.The Army Corps estimates that $311 million of the total cost will be spent on mitigating environmental impacts, including $72.2 million to buy a dozen of the Speece conesto pump oxygen into the river. Another $1.2 million annually will be spent operating and maintaining the bubblers.The Army Corps will use the 20-foot tall bubblers only in the hottest months, when oxygen levels drop. A federal test on the Savannah River in 2007 was declared a success.
However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported the following year “a high degree of uncertainty as to how effective oxygen injection would be.” The agency noted that the Speece cones had never been used in a tidal system similar to the Savannah River’s.Steve Hatchel, until recently the president of Eco Oxygen Technologies which makes the Speece cones, has said his company has never undertaken such a large oxygenation project. Neither Hatchel nor the Indianapolis-based company’s current president could be reached for comment.Nonetheless Hatchel and others say the bubblers will work. Every federal agency with jurisdiction over the deepening, including Fish and Wildlife, signed off on the deepening last year. “Nobody is going to endanger the river. That’s a losing proposition for everybody concerned,” said Scott, newly elected chairman of the Chatham County Board of Commissioners. “We’re convinced the bubblers work or we wouldn’t move forward with the plan.”
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