WATER WOES

By AMY HORTON CARTER

The Brunswick News

Few things on Georgia's coast grow well without water, especially its cities and counties.

Yet Brunswick and Glynn County have grown tremendously since 1997, the year state regulators put a cap on groundwater withdrawals, prohibiting the community from increasing the amount of water it pumps from the ground, regardless of how much demand might grow.

The adjustment was tough to make at first. A five-year drought followed on the heels of the restriction, and shallow wells began drying up.

Mechanical problems plagued the aging water and sewer system on St. Simons Island, epicenter for coastal growth, forcing early morning shutdowns to give the system time to recover from peak use periods.

The city was forced to take one of its newest drinking water production wells in Perry Park out of commission due to the high content of salt in the water.

"It was not a health threat but once (the chloride level) starts getting in the high range it gets to the point where people with sensitive taste can taste it," said William Francis, assistant director of water and wastewater services for the City of Brunswick.

City and countywide, outdoor watering was restricted to specific times on certain days of the week.

Credit greater efficiency and diversification of water sources for the feat of getting through.

"It has not been a hardship," Francis said. "We have had a good response for conservation and we're actually using less water with more customers than we were a number of years back."

Businesses, industries and city and county governments got together after the Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources implemented caps on water use. They've made substantial reductions in the overall amount of water they withdraw from the upper Floridan, through both conservation and the relocation of some wells -- particularly those dedicated to lawn and golf course irrigation -- to a shallower aquifer system.

"Jekyll Island moved their water withdrawals on a couple of golf courses from the upper Floridan to what is known as the lower Brunswick, which is the Miocene-age aquifer," Francis said.

"Glynn County has developed one well in the Brunswick aquifer system and is getting ready to develop another one in the north Glynn County area," Francis said.

Now, the coast is preparing to emerge from the confines of eight years' worth of restrictions. The EPD's interim strategy expires in December, paving the way for implementation of a long-term plan for managing a finite resource that is already seriously threatened by a century of steady use.

"It's apparent that we're going to have some sort of water management in place, especially in more populated areas like Savannah and Brunswick, and that of course will be part of a greater plan for statewide water management," said Kevin Chambers, a spokesman for the EPD in Atlanta.

Saltwater intrusion into the main and in some cases sole water source for Coastal Georgia, the upper layer of the Floridan aquifer, brought on the 1997 water restrictions in the form of an interim management strategy that capped water withdrawals in Glynn and Chatham counties, as well as portions of Effingham and Bryan counties.

Saltwater intrusion affects two different spots on the coast. One is Brunswick.

Heavy industrial and municipal pumping is to blame for pulling saltwater from a deep brackish aquifer underneath the peninsula the city sits on, scientists say. The source of contamination is saltwater trapped very deep underground, below 1,000 feet, said John Clarke, assistant director of the U.S. Geological Survey's Water Science Center in Atlanta.

"We've been monitoring the plume at Brunswick for many years now and it seems that the plume seems to have stabilized where it (is). It doesn't seem to be growing at all," Clarke said. "It started growing in late '50s ... and expanded. Originally it was just in the Bay Street area of Brunswick, eventually growing up north to where all the big pumping is going on."

By managing and reducing pumping when possible, the community's biggest water users have helped to stabilize the size of the plume and prevent its spread, Clarke said. However, chloride levels inside the plume do jump up and down in response to pumping, he said.

Another plume of saltwater is flowing into the aquifer underneath Savannah from South Carolina's Port Royal Sound.

The U.S. Geological Service drilled offshore from Tybee and Hilton Head islands in search of the source and found that ancient river channels had actually cut into the aquifer, making it possible for saltwater to seep into the aquifer.

Prior studies done by the USGS, which has been studying the coast's problems with saltwater intrusion since the 1960s, show that years of heavy pumping have actually reversed the flow of water underground. Recharged by rains west and northwest of the coast, groundwater once flowed eastward, and historic accounts by mariners even told of an artesian spring in the ocean offshore from Georgia. Miles from land, sailors could toss buckets over the sides of their ships and bring up fresh drinking water.

The EPD implemented the interim strategy for managing saltwater intrusion into the upper Floridan to keep both plumes from spreading while scientists studied the issue and counties developed alternative water sources.

Chambers of the EPD said the science will be available for public review later this summer.

"It's been a project that has spanned several years now and it is intended to get a better understanding of how the pumping of groundwater impacts the aquifers and the effects of saltwater intrusion," Chambers said.

Clarke, with USGS, said the results of what is known as the sound science study are so extensive it recently took him an hour-and-a-half to brief legislators on the results.

Francis, who represents the city on a technical advisory committee linked to the Sound Science Initiative, said public meetings to discuss the initiative's findings will be held during the first two weeks of August in Brunswick, Jesup, Kingsland, Savannah and Statesboro. Brunswick's hearing will be the last, on Aug. 11. Locations will be announced later.