By a 5-1 vote Tuesday morning, the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners approved an agreement with Bryan County to establish the Groundwater Sustainability Program. It will compensate owners of private deep wells if they go dry or lose pressure because of four high-volume wells the two counties will use to supply water to Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America.

The Bryan County Board of Commissioners had approved the agreement Monday night. For Bulloch County, it comes at a time of political transition. After the 8:30 am. meeting, the county staff held a farewell reception for the outgoing commission chairman, one outgoing commissioner and one former commissioner who lost their seats in the elections earlier this year. In addition to a 2023 property tax increase, plans for the wells and surrounding residential development fed the anti-incumbent mood that swept them from office.

So Chairman Roy Thompson, who served eight years in that role after 12 as a district commissioner, was presiding at what was expected to be his last meeting. Cindy Steinmann, regularly the assistant county manager, is now serving as interim county manager since Tom Couch, Bulloch County manager for 20 years, departed the last week of November for a new job with a South Carolina county.

But it was County Attorney Jeff Akins who presented the agreement on the well mitigation program and related matters. He noted that it had been discussed at two previous Board of Commissioners meetings.

"The agreement that you have before you between Bulloch and Bryan counties implements and obligates the counties to comply with the Groundwater Sustainability Program, which is attached to and incorporated into the agreement," he told the commissioners. 

A 25-year agreement, it "also obligates the counties to work with other municipal governments to expeditiously and thoroughly plan for and secure the timely provision of future surface water or other feasible alternative water supplies," Akins recited. This refers to a special condition the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, or EPD, placed on the groundwater pumping permits it issued to Bulloch County and Bryan County on Oct. 7 for the four wells.

All four planned wells, together, are permitted for 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.

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.

If the large wells cause the water level in the Floridan Aquifer to drop so that existing private deep wells lose pressure or go dry, the fund will pay to have the submersible pumps lowered in the shafts, or potentially even replacement wells drilled. The agreement sets out the actual terms, and its preamble identifies available funding that adds up to $1 million, including $250,000 each from the Development Authority of Bulloch County, the Development Authority of Bryan County, Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America Inc. and the Savannah Harbor I-16 Corridor Joint Development Authority.

In a study summarized for the public last February, EPD scientists predicted that, based on hydrologic modeling, the four large wells would draw down the water level in the deep 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.

The other special condition of the well permits calls for the effort to replace these wells and their drawdown of the aquifer with a surface water source — such as the Savannah River — or another alternative source.

Davis votes 'no'

When Thompson asked if any commissioners had comments, new Commissioner Ray Davis spoke up. A farmer in the Stilson area, he was active in raising concerns about the proposed wells nearly a year ago, and this led to his victorious campaign for a commission seat in the Republican primary in May. Commissioner Curt Deal, whom Davis defeated for the next four-year term, which will begin January, resigned this fall to move out of the county, and Davis was sworn in early.

"Mr. Chairman, I'm the seventh generation to farm that land down in the lower part of Bulloch County," Davis began Tuesday. "My son is the eighth; my grandson is the ninth. I was advised to submit this for the record, if applicable. If not, it can be FYI information, and these are simply the GPS locations of the wells that may, could be, very likely will be effected by these Hyundai wells."

He made sure that each of the other commissioners and Akins were given copies of a sheet of paper, labeled "Bulloch County Agriculture Forum: Water table impacts due to high volume well drilling." It listed the latitude and longitude and abbreviated landowner or location names of eight agricultural wells — not residential or other small wells — and gave their distances, ranging from 1 mile to 4.5 miles, from the nearest of the four Hyundai wells. The farm wells' distances from the farthest Hyundai wells were also listed, ranging from 3.5 miles to 5.75 miles.

The sheet also included a statement that the rated pump capacities, 1,800 gallons per minute for two of the wells and 2,000 gpm for the other two, would multiply to 10.94 million gallons per day. This is based on a technical rating of pump capacities, but the 6.615 limit is a legal maximum. The four county-owned Hyundai supply wells, the sheet stated, are all within approximately 4.5 miles of one another.

"My business, my community, not necessarily in that order, are very concerned about this project going forward," Davis said.

Akins asked that the sheet Davis submitted be placed in the record as an exhibit attached to the minutes of the meeting.

When Thompson called for a motion, Commissioner Timmy Rushing made one to approve the agreement, Commissioner Anthony Simmons seconded, and the vote was 5-1 with Davis opposed.

Sack speaks

Lawton Sack, one of the co-founders of the Bulloch Action Coalition, which has attempted to raise a petition for a referendum to repeal two of the Board of Commissioners' previous actions regarding the wells and migration plan, spoke later during public comments time. He noted that he had shared some of the same comments with the Bryan County commissioners the previous evening.

"The most important part is, we had the GSP (Groundwater Sustainability Program) peer-reviewed by other people with experience in writing those reports, and they told us that this report was not ready and should not be ready for adoption by either of the boards, that there were a lot of holes in there, many liability points in there," Sack said.

"This board and the Board of Commissioners of Bryan County have taken on liability for what is coming forth, and we get a little pushback for having the guts to come up here to speak, and that is OK," he said.

He said group has spoken to independent scientists who disagreed with the EPD's findings and to "people in the political realm" who said a lot of pressure was put on county officials to approve everything related to the wells before new commissioners come on board.

"This is a 25-year agreement that you just entered into. It should not have been taken as lightly as it was. There should have been a public hearing held on this; the people should've had their voices heard on this before you adopted it," Sack said. "But here we are with it in place. … Just be ready to accept the consequences that are going to come by these poor decisions."

After an unrelated comment by one of several citizens who thanked Thompson and the other departing commissioners and wished them well, Thompson spoke from the dais.

"Mr. Sack, you're either going to be right or you're going to be wrong. We based our opinions on professional guidance from geologists," Thompson said. "So I guess there will be a wait (and see). That's all can tell you. And I hope you're wrong."

"Oh, I do too," Sack said.