A Coastal Georgia environmental group is challenging two water withdrawal permits approved last month to provide millions of gallons a day of pristine groundwater to the Hyundai megasite in Ellabell.
The Ogeechee Riverkeeper on Nov. 6, 2024, filed a petition in the office of state administrative hearings to appeal the permits issued by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division on Oct. 7. The permits allow Bulloch and Bryan counties to withdraw a total of 6.625 million gallons of water a day from four wells in the Floridan aquifer in Bulloch County. Four million gallons a day of that water is destined for the Hyundai manufacturing complex site, about 5 miles east of the planned wells. The remainder will provide water to business, residential and warehouse developments associated with the Hyundai site.
At the heart of the Riverkeeper’s concerns are the issues of protecting the aquifer, an underground layer of rock that stores and releases water. The Floridan aquifer is generally free of man-made pollutants, and the Riverkeeper wants regulators to prioritize its use for drinking and agriculture rather than for industry.
EPD scientists say pumping up to 6.625 million gallons a day from the wells will draw down the Floridan aquifer to some degree for users as far away as Hilton Head. The greatest effects will be seen closest to the new wells, with an expected drawdown of up to 19 feet there. A plan is being developed to compensate the users within 5 miles of the Hyundai-related wells if private well pumps must be lowered.
But those private Bulloch County domestic and agricultural well owners are not the only considerations. This new withdrawal stress on the Floridan aquifer, which stretches underneath all of Coastal Georgia and beyond, comes as Georgia regulators have been working with area water users for almost two decades to remedy the effects of previous overpumping. They’ve seen some success, with a recovery of about 40 feet of pressure where pumping was most intense in Savannah, called the cone of depression. To achieve that recovery, the largest users have had to cut back on the amounts of water pulled from the aquifer. That means many Savannahians who used to drink aquifer water are now being served up a blend of aquifer water and Savannah River water.
Ogeechee Riverkeeper legal director Ben Kirsch said it’s unfair to negate these sacrifices for Hyundai’s benefit.
“They’re saying this will add one to three feet of additional drawdown at the center of the cone of depression in Savannah,” Kirsch said. “But you know, that 40 feet (of rebound) has come at the expense of other water users, including you and I, who have increasingly had to drink treated river water, as opposed to this pristine aquifer water.”
Drinking water is treated to federal health standards, but that doesn’t mean it’s all created equal, Kirsch said. Aquifer water is better protected from man-made pollutants by virtue of its storage far underground. River water receives industrial and municipal discharges as well as agricultural runoff and runoff that carries leaked oil and gas from roads.
“Just as an example, we have this PFAS issue going on throughout the country,” Kirsch said, referring to what’s commonly called “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment.
“They’re working towards removing PFAS and getting it to a safe level,” he said. But he argues in favor of prioritizing aquifer water for drinking in the first place.
“We’re drinking water that has to be treated, that’s been exposed to all of that, while … the pristine, unpolluted water is being used in industrial processes,” Kirsch said. “It just is a flip of what you would expect those water uses to be.”
PFAS is just the latest concern, he said.
“We, as the general public, haven’t known about the harm of PFAs for very long,” he said. “So what is going to be the next PFAS that we learn is in our water already, and is not being treated, not being paid attention to?”
A 2022 report by Environment America, “Wasting Our Waterways,” listed the lower Savannah River among the worst 50 local watersheds for its burden of cancer-causing chemicals, with the annual total in that stretch of the river at 7,261 pounds. Just upstream, the middle Savannah was listed among the worst 50 local watersheds in two categories: total toxics released and developmental toxics released.
The use of river water is likely in Hyundai’s future, but not soon enough for the Ogeechee Riverkeeper. The permits give the counties 25 years to find another water source for Hyundai, most likely surface water from the Savannah River. The use of surface water was rejected for the plant’s launch because it would have taken 10 years longer to implement and cost an estimated $362 million more than Bulloch well water.
Officials react
Trip Tollison, secretary/treasurer of the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority (Savannah JDA) expressed disappointment in the Riverkeeper’s filing.
“We stand by Georgia EPD’s rigorous scientific analysis of this site and its conclusion that there is enough water for all purposes, including industrial, agricultural and private usage,” Tollison, who is also president and CEO of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, wrote in a prepared statement.
“The site has been under federal environmental review since 2014, and modeling has shown that the impact will be limited, with only five agricultural wells experiencing a drop over 10 feet. Typically, Georgia EPD considers anything under a 30-foot drop a nonsignificant impact.
“We are confident that the science supports the Georgia EPD and remain steadfast in our goal of supporting industry and agriculture while protecting and preserving the environment. We look forward to a ruling on this appeal.”
Bryan and Bulloch county officials did not comment.
“We have no comment on the Ogeechee Riverkeeper’s petition since it is considered pending litigation,” said
Bulloch County Attorney Jeff Akins.
Carter Infinger, the chairman of the Bryan County Commission, and County Manager Ben Taylor did not respond to a request for comment.
Monitoring concerns
If Bryan and Bulloch move forward with the new wells, the Riverkeeper wants to see them monitored more thoroughly than what’s required in the permits. Of special concern is the intrusion of saltwater into the wells. Bulloch is far enough inland that the Atlantic Ocean would not be the source of the salt, as it has been on South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island. Instead, the worry focuses on possible connections to deeper, saltier aquifers beneath the Floridan.
The Floridan aquifer is protected by a confining layer of clay that generally prevents the intrusion of water and contaminants from above and below, but some areas, including Bulloch, are susceptible to “vertical conduits.”
“Vertical conduits are naturally occurring gaps in the ground that connect aquifers to the surface and allow for the direct movement of water between groundwater and surface water sources – causing localized saltwater intrusion issues and allowing for the downward movement of pollutants into the underlying aquifers,” the Riverkeeper writes in its permit appeal. “Concentrated pumping and less restricted vertical movement of water allows saltwater from more saline aquifers below the Floridan Aquifer to upwell, causing localized saltwater encroachment issues.”
These vertical conduits occur throughout Georgia’s coastal plain. Brunswick’s saltwater plume is a prime example of this geological formation contributing to saltwater intrusion. In Bulloch County, large sinkholes point to their presence in this area, too. But until a sinkhole appears, it’s hard to say where these unwanted connections exist.
“So then the issue is that we don’t know where these conduits are,” Kirsch said. “We don’t know. EPD doesn’t know. Nobody can know. So with there being other known vertical conduits in Bulloch County itself, what we’re asking for there is just monitoring and making sure that they don’t accidentally bump into one.”
What’s next
Georgia law requires the permits to be paused while the appeal is active. That doesn’t mean the wells can’t be built, as the permits govern only the withdrawal of the water, not well construction per se. That said, it is unclear if construction of the wells has begun. Officials from Bryan County, which is handling the design and construction of the wells and associated infrastructure, did not respond to a request for information.
Georgia law requires an administrative law judge to be assigned to the case within seven days, and render a judgment within 90 days. However, the judge may extend the period “for good cause” for another 60 days. Given the Riverkeeper’s filing on Nov. 6, the timeline appears to require a decision by April 5, 2025.
By then, the Metaplant is expected to need the wells’ water.
Hyundai produced its first vehicle at the Metaplant in October. The Metaplant campus has enough water from a well on site to cover its needs in its initial launch phase, about 335,000 gallons a day, Tollison told The Current earlier this year. But by the second quarter of 2025, Georgia has promised to deliver almost 6.5 times as much: 2.15 million gallons a day.
The JDA is counting on the new wells to keep that promise.
This story was first seen in TheCurrent.org. It is republished as part of a shared story agreement between Grice Connect and The Current.
