Work Begins on Georgia Harbor Expansion, Ironclad Recovery

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Work has begun on a long-awaited expansion project for Georgia's Savannah Harbor to accommodate bigger freighters. But workers must first remove something from the past: namely, a 150-year-old Confederate ironclad vessel.

Project developers held a ceremony in January to celebrate the kickoff of the first phase of the expansion project, which presently comes with a $706 million price tag. The state already has earmarked $266 million for the project and is waiting for Congress to appropriate the remaining amount.

Industrial Info is tracking three active Savannah Harbor projects with a combined investment value of $843.5 million.

Once the Panama Canal widening project is complete in 2016, larger ships will make their way to U.S. ports along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The Savannah port handled 3.34 million twenty-foot-equivalent container units (TEUs) in 2014, according to the Georgia Port Authority.

The expansion had been discussed since the 1990's, but it gained little traction due to lack of funding. The Georgia State Legislature then voted to commit a portion of the funding needed for the project, with the federal government to eventually fund the rest.

President Barack Obama signed a law in 2014 allowing the expansion project to start construction. The Obama administration is seeking $21 million in federal funding this year for the project, according to news media accounts.

The project calls for deepening the inner harbor to 47 feet from the present 42 feet, and the entrance channel to 49 feet. The entrance channel will be extended seven miles. The expansion is estimated to allow for an additional 3,600 cargo containers per transit, an increase of 78%. The dredging portion of the project will take 62 months to complete, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

One of the first things that need to be done is the recovery of the remains of the CSS Georgia, a Civil War ironclad that is embedded in the bottom of the Savannah River, according to the Corps of Engineers. According to civilwar.wiki.net, the 250-foot ironclad ship was built in Savannah for the Confederacy in 1862. The vessel was used as a floating battery and was scuttled in 1864 to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Union army.

The remains of the vessel were first discovered during dredging operations in 1969, and a piece of the ship was recovered in 2013. As part of the harbor expansion, archaeologists will map the site, tag artifacts and recover them.

Following the five-month archeological phase, U.S. Navy divers will recover unexploded ordnance and large artifacts and perform any remaining casemate (gun emplacements) recovery, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps will provide for inventory of the collection, conservation of the artifacts, and transport of the artifacts to the curation repository chosen by the U.S. Navy.

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