With last week’s Congressional approval of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), construction of the long-awaited expansion of the Savannah Harbor should finally begin this year. The project’s importance to Georgia cannot be overstated: more than 350,000 jobs in our state – 150,000 in metro Atlanta – are connected to our ports. And the benefit to America is manifold: the harbor deepening is anticipated to return $5.50 for every dollar invested. The bill awaiting the President’s signature includes project approvals and reforms that are crucial to the estimated one quarter of our nation’s GDP directly attributable to international trade.
The legislation that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support will help modernize America’s aging maritime infrastructure, which is critical to our global trade leadership. The U.S. needs investment at every level to increase the velocity, efficiency and safety of our ports. The bill authorizes projects and controls spending by sunsetting unfunded initiatives. And it aims to reform the protracted process that required nearly 20 years to reach this juncture for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project.
Georgia has not stood idle over the decades leading to this moment. Savannah has become the port of choice in the Southeast for many reasons including the significant investments the Georgia Ports Authority has made – and continues to make – in port facilities, ever increasing efficiency for our customers and responsibly stewarding our natural resources. The most recent improvements at the Savannah port include newer, more efficient cranes with greater capacity, additional facilities for refrigerated cargo, and technology to improve the movement of cargo including during emergencies.
Equally important is Georgia’s investment in transportation infrastructure, such as highway improvements that add to the port’s efficiency. Most recently, for example, the Jimmy Deloach Parkway Extension will bring Interstate 95 directly into the port. Under construction now, the project will deliver economic and environmental benefits by segregating port traffic from commuter traffic, thereby reducing driving times, congestion and idling emmissions. And these public investments are leveraging private logistics infrastructure all across Georgia and the Southeast.
Georgians owe a debt of gratitude to our Congressional delegation for their unwavering, bipartisan, persistent advocacy for Georgia’s ports– and our national water infrastructure more generally. The bill passed last week officially raises the spending limit set when the harbor expansion project was first authorized in 1999, which will allow both state and federal dollars to flow to the port deepening. Thanks to Governor Deal and the Georgia General Assembly, we have in place $266 million to begin construction as soon as a project partnership agreement between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Georgia is signed.
The first work on the project will include dredging to extend the entrance channel from the mouth of the Savannah River seven miles farther into the Atlantic Ocean. Other early project elements include mitigation features such as an oxygen injection system, a freshwater storage alternative for the city of Savannah and the recovery of what remains of the CSS Georgia.
We urge the President to move swiftly to enact the WRRDA legislation. And we look forward to continued leadership and support from Congress and the administration to fund the federal government’s share of the harbor expansion project costs.
