Georgetown County receives $6.5 million federal grant to deepen harbor

GEORGETOWN COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) - The Georgetown Harbor is home to dozens of boats and at low tide harbor waters can get down to only three feet, making boats harder to maneuver.

One boater, Frankie Blake, has owned a boat on the harbor for ten years. He said his boat sits about four feet deep in the water. Although he tells me his boat has never hit the bottom, he’d rather not take it out at low tide at all.

“I’m not sitting on bottom, but some of the boats are,” said Blake. “You don’t have very much to play with.”

Blake said he had noticed the silt in the water getting higher. County officials have noticed, too, and have made it a goal to dredge or deepen the inner harbor.

Georgetown County received a $6.5 million federal grant to put towards this project.

“We believe that getting the funding to assist in dredging that particular harbor will assist our economy, really, and it will satisfy the boaters’ concerns,” said county council chairman Louis Morant.

Morant said he thinks this upgrade will be beneficial to both people who boat recreationally and people who boat for their jobs.

“Georgetown is a waterfront community, and to have all the water that’s here that our boaters and the people of Georgetown county cannot utilize, it’s not beneficial,” said Morant.

Morant said on top of the new grant, the county has about $6 million already set aside for this project, but officials are still determining exactly how much the dredging will cost.

Although some aspects of the project are up in the air, Blake tells WMBF News he and other boaters have been waiting for this, and hearing about the grant gives him hope.

“I was happy, very glad to hear it,” said Blake.

Right now, there is no timeline for when dredging will start. Morant tells WMBF News a study will be done to determine how to move forward.

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