To read a full description of the scope of the work, open the Army Corps of Engineers description of the project below:

Georgetown Dredging Project Public Notice

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The purpose of this project is to provide safe and efficient navigation within the Georgetown Harbor Navigation Project (GHNP) for commercial and recreational vessels. Maintenance dredging is necessary to address shoaling caused by the recruitment of fine sediments from the Sampit River and Winyah Bay tidal movements which create obstructions and reduce navigable depths in critical areas of the harbor. Authority for the GHNP is found in the River and Harbor Act (RHA) of 1886, RHA March 2, 1945, and RHA of June 30, 1948. These authorizations provide for a channel 27 feet deep with varying widths of 600 to 400 feet from the Atlantic Ocean to the harbor and include a turning basin in the Sampit River, and a side channel 2,400 feet long and not less than 200 feet wide leading to a turning basin at the upper end of the built-up portion of the city waterfront. The channel is widened at the bends, secured and maintained by two jetties of stone on brush mattresses leading respectively from North and South islands. The north jetty is 11,139 feet long and the south jetty is 21,051 feet long. The project also provides for maintenance to a depth of 18 feet for a width of 400 feet of the bypassed portion of Sampit River opposite the City of Georgetown. The GHNP also shares about 15,000 feet of channel with the Bucksport to Winyah Bay segment of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AIWW) (Figure 1). The earliest authorization of the South Carolina portion of the AIWW can be found in the River and Harbor Act of March 3, 1881, while the River and Harbor Act of August 26, 1937, authorized the present dimensions of 12 feet deep and 90 feet wide.