The Bulloch Action Coalition, or BAC, announced Wednesday that it has halted its petition drive for a referendum to repeal the Bulloch County government’s two initial agreements with Bryan County related to the four publicly owned, high-volume Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America supply wells.

A 501c4 nonprofit corporation identified as a civic and social organization, the politically active BAC launched the double petition drive in August 2024, seeking enough signatures to place two questions on a ballot before Bulloch County voters. If such a referendum had been held, one question would have asked, “Shall the motion passed by the Bulloch County … Commissioners approving a memorandum of understanding for a well mitigation program between Bulloch County and Bryan County be repealed?” The other would have asked the same thing about “an intergovernmental agreement between Bulloch County and Bryan County to provide water and sewer services.”

Both of those motions were made by the Board of Commissioners during a June 27, 2024 meeting, as noted again in the BAC’s July 23, 2025 press release announcing the suspension of the petition drive. The release referred to those motions as “the devastating decisions” made by the board on that date.

In the release, the Bulloch Action Coalition cited two reasons for halting the petition and referendum drive.

Surface water plan

The first reason is the state’s approval of $501.7 million funding, in the midyear fiscal 2025 supplemental budget, for the Coastal Georgia Regional Water Partnership’s plan to extend surface water supplies, particularly from the Savannah River, to meet the needs of the Hyundai plant and other growth in the region. Gov. Brian Kemp endorsed the plan and signed the budget in March.

In draft permits for the four wells that will draw water from the deep Floridan aquifer, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, or EPD, required that Bulloch and Bryan counties work with others in the region to develop surface water sources that would replace the wells within 25 years. A legal challenge by the Ogeechee Riverkeeper organization succeeded in getting this reduced to 15 years.

Then with the state funding, the Coastal Georgia Regional Water Partnership plan, involving the city of Savannah, Bryan County and Effingham County, is projected to accomplish the move to surface water much sooner, in five years, as the BAC acknowledged in its release.

“The decision to suspend the referendum efforts was based on the belief that no amount of money over the commitment of almost $502 million by the State could get us to surface water any quicker than the Governor’s plan to provide water to the Hyundai Megasite in three years from the Savannah River and two years later from Effingham County at Ebenezer Creek on the Savannah River.” the release stated.

That statement wasn’t attributed to an individual, but the release also included quotations from the BAC’s two co-founders.

“We are still disappointed in the decision by the previous Bulloch County Board of Commissioners to proceed with making these terrible decisions despite the outcry by citizens,” BAC co-founder Lawton Sack said in the release. “However, we are so thankful that the State of Georgia heard the voices of Bulloch County citizens and acted appropriately when the Board of Commissioners would not. We are staunchly committed to continuing our efforts to echo the voices of citizens and to be a watchdog of our local government.”

Cost of the fight

The second factor mentioned for suspending the drive for a referendum is the estimated cost of bringing it to a successful conclusion. The release gives a total estimate of approximately $300,000, including $100,000 for filing the petitions and for the referendum campaign, $150,000 for defending against a possible challenge in the local Superior Court and $50,000 for a possible Georgia Supreme Court challenge.

A local person closely involved with the petition drive – not either of the BAC co-founders but someone who provided background and requested anonymity – said a well-known Georgia political consultant, whom the Statesboro Herald has not contacted for confirmation, provided the estimate of the cost of a successful referendum campaign. Attorneys advising the BAC on the petition and referendum effort estimated the possible legal costs, and the coalition received advice in this matter from Eckland & Blando, a specialized Minnesota-based law firm, the source said.

The release stated that the lawyers advising “the petition team … have been retained for further decisions concerning the four large Hyundai wells.”

“The State of Georgia heard the voices of the Bulloch County citizens and saw their dedication to fight for their aquifer,” BAC co-founder Cassandra Mikell said in the release. “They stepped in to provide a real solution to the problems caused by the commissioners, whose actions did not match the desire of their constituents. … We will work hard to bring continued change locally in 2026 and beyond.”

Changing well-scape

A couple of other things, not mentioned in the release, had changed since the petition drive started.

First, the Bulloch County commissioners in December approved a more detailed agreement with Bryan County to establish a mitigation program for private wells in a five-mile radius that might be affected by falling water levels, and both counties have taken further steps to make the program functional.

Second, the four Hyundai supply wells have been drilled, but county officials say the wells are not pumping yet.

Enough signatures?

A passage in Article 9, Section 2 of Georgia’s State Constitution allows for referendums to appeal “local acts or ordinances, resolutions, or regulations” of a county governing board to be initiated by a petition from registered voters filed with the county probate judge. For a county, such as Bulloch, with more than 50,000 residents, signatures would be required from at least 10% of the county’s registered voters as of the last general election.

Bulloch County had 44,925 registered voters at the November 2022 general election. So when the drive was launched in August 2024, about 4,500 signatures of registered voters would have been needed for each of the two petitions, but the BAC leaders said they were aiming for 6,000 signatures.

Wednesday’s release didn’t mention the signature count, so the reporter asked Sack in an email.

“We were mighty close to meeting the Constitutional requirement in Georgia and would have definitely hit our internal goal of at least 10% overage from that requirement to cover signature challenges by our local elected officials and county staff,” he wrote in reply.  "The decision to suspend was not based on signature gathering.” 

The Bulloch County government owns two of the “Hyundai” wells and Bryan County owns the other two, although all four are geographically within Bulloch County near the Bryan County line. Together, the four wells are permitted by the EPD to pump up to 6.625 million gallons per day on average over the course of a year. Based on a hydrologic study, EPD scientists predicted that the four large wells could draw down the water level in the Floridan aquifer by a maximum of 19 feet close to those wells. The “cone of depression” created by the withdrawal would slope upward from there, dropping the highwater mark about 10 feet at a five-mile distance from the wells, in the EPD’s projections.