Contractors are moving forward with plans for four high-capacity wells, two to be owned by Bulloch County and two by Bryan County but all four located within Bulloch, plus a pipeline system to carry water to Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America and potentially other customers in North Bryan.
This is happening as the Bulloch Action Coalition continues its petition drive for a referendum to repeal the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners' initial June 2024 agreements with Bryan County for the water system and wells and after three new commissioners who supported the repeal petition have arrived on the board.
Work on three elements of the project within Bulloch County, labeled Divisions I, II and III, are supposed to begin in mid-January, said Tony Rojas, owner of TPR Consulting Services, who has served as a consultant to Bulloch County officials throughout the planning process. Division I will consist of Garden City-based contractor PINCO's drilling of two of the wells and installation of two 20,000-gallon tanks for a base bid amount of $5.8 million.
Division 2 will be Legacy Water Group's installation underground of 185 linear feet of 16-inch diameter water main and 6,895 feet, or more than 1.3 miles, of 24-inch diameter water main along Old Highway 46, which is now a county road, for $7.8 million. For Division III, Legacy Water Group will install 17,830 feet, or more than 3.3 miles, of 30-inch diameter water main along Georgia Highway 119 for just over $8.29 million.
"They're supposed to start this work in mid-January," Rojas said Friday. "It's like they've already been given a notice to proceed, but they'll do shop drawings and those kinds of things."
Bulloch County Engineer Brad Deal, a member of the county government staff, also said these contractors are expected to begin work mid-January. Land disturbing activity permits issued by Bulloch County's planning and zoning office Sept. 13 for Legacy Water Group's portions of the work gave a Dec. 11 date for a pre-construction meeting. Legacy's Vice President for Operations Scott Hibbard said he attended this meeting and that a well drilling contractor was also represented.
Hofstadter & Associates, the engineering firm selected by Bulloch County officials, designed this part of the project as a subcontractor for Thomas & Hutton, which is the engineering firm for the overall system.
"As for the status of the wells that are owned by Bryan County, I do not have information, although I believe they are further along in the construction process," Deal said in a Jan. 2 email. "I would have to refer you to the Bryan County office for information on that."
Somebody's drilling
As of Monday, the Statesboro Herald reporter had not received callbacks from Bryan County staff members after a phone message left Friday. But a well-drilling company's rig was operating on or near a parcel identified in Bulloch County tax records as a 0.92-acre "well site," now owned by the Bryan County government. It's near the Bulloch-Bryan County line but within Bulloch and, like the other three well sites, not far from the Interstate 16-State Route 119 interchange.
Rojas referred to the Division I contract with PINCO and the Division II and III Legacy Water Group contracts — the three together carrying a $21.9 million price tag — as being the "Bulloch County" portion of the project.
Bryan County paying?
But the minutes of the Oct. 8, 2024, Bryan County commissioners' meeting show a 4-0 award of "Bryan-Bulloch County Water Transmission Main Division I/II/III" contracts to PINCO and Legacy Water Group. The amount shown for Division I is $300,000 less than Rojas listed, and the amount for Division III is about $266,000 higher, but the highway locations of the pipeline work are the same.
However, the four member counties of the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority — Bulloch, Bryan, Effingham and Chatham — are sharing infrastructure costs to support the Hyundai plant. For example, the Bulloch County commissioners in March 2024 voted to reassign $7.5 million from a larger federal grant Bulloch County previously received under the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, to Bryan County to supply a 12% share of infrastructure for the four-county Mega Site where the plant was built.
Permits issued Oct. 6 by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, or EPD, allow the four planned wells, together, to pump up to 6.625 million gallons per day over the course of a year. Bryan County's two wells, together, are permitted to withdraw up to 3.5 mgd on a monthly and annual average. Bulloch County's two wells are permitted for up to 3.5 mgd on a monthly average, but somewhat less, 3.125 mgd, as an annual average.
Based on hydrology studies, EPD scientists predicted that the four wells could cause the water level in the deep Floridan aquifer to drop up to 19 feet at the center of the "cone of depression" nearest the wells.
One special condition, released in draft form months before the actual permits were issued, required the counties to create a "joint municipal managed fund … to address any potential impacts to existing Floridan aquifer wells" out to a five-mile radius of the center point of the four Hyundai supply wells, near the I-16 and Georgia Highway 119 interchange.
Petition drive status
In August, the Bulloch Action Coalition, or BAC, launched a dual petition drive aimed at calling a referendum of voters to repeal the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners' approval of two agreements with Bryan County related to the wells. By two separate 4-2 votes on June 27, the Bulloch commissioners had approved both the initial memorandum of understanding, or MOU, to create the mitigation fund program and the intergovernmental agreement, or IGA, for the water system.
A passage in Article 9, Section 2 of Georgia's State Constitution allows for referendums to repeal "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.
At the time the petition drive was launched, the Bulloch Action Coalition would have needed about 4,500 signatures of Bulloch registered voters on each of the two petitions to force a referendum. That number increased by about 300 voters because of voter registration before the November 2024 election. At first, BAC leaders had aimed for 6,000 signatures. Now, they're about two-thirds of the way to the new minimum of 4,800, according to BAC co-founder Lawton Sack.
"We're at approximately about 3,200, give or take, yes," he said last week.
"We are about to shift into Phase 2 and we are going to start going out into subdivisions and going door-to-door. We are currently about two-thirds of the way through the collection of the signatures, and so we are going to be ramping up our efforts in getting that final third," Sack said.
As of Monday, the group had scheduled an "organizational meeting" for 6:30 p.m. Jan. 15 at the John Wesley Center, 111 West Main St. in Brooklet to plan petition "work days" of Jan. 25–26 and Feb. 1–2.
The story will be updated for this week's print edition.