INTRACOASTAL TO RECEIVE $5.9 MILLION IN FUNDING
Washington, D.C.,
Apr 29 -
Last December, the University of Georgia released a study that showed continued deterioration of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway would cost Georgia’s economy $124.5 million and 2,100 jobs. That study resonated in Washington today when Congressman Jack Kingston (R/GA-1) today announced that the Army Corps of Engineers approved nearly $6 million in funding for the waterway.
"The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway is an economic engine,” Congressman Kingston said. “Similar to a military base, its impact creates jobs, businesses and opportunities. This funding was intended to create jobs and, with an investment in the Intracoastal, I’m confident it will do just that. The UGA study shows that Georgia can capitalize on a lot more of the local and transient boaters to help the economy recover. "
The funding, part of nearly $94.3 million invested in the Corps’ Savannah District, will go toward dredging troubled spots along channel which spans the 100 miles of Georgia’s coastline. Specifically, it will be used to improve the ability to move energy related commodities and reduce the risk to commercial and recreational navigational users.
"I'd like to thank Congressman Jack Kingston and Colonel Edward Kertis for their work to support Georgia's portion of the Intracoastal - without their efforts this would not have happened," said Charles Waller, President of the Georgia Marine Business Association. "The ICW is the “I-95” for commercial and recreational boaters transiting the East Coast, and it provides an enormous economic benefit to this state. Out-of-state boaters stopping in Georgia will typically visit restaurants, grocery stores, doctors, and numerous other retail establishments and businesses, generating millions in tax revenues and hundreds of millions in economic activity throughout Georgia."
Georgia’s portion of the waterway has been a navigation channel since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when Spanish traders and Franciscan friars used it to travel between the friars’ chain of missions. Since its early beginnings, the waterway has become an economic engine for the area.
Not only used by local recreational boaters, the waterway is a magnet for out of town boaters as well as those moving their vessels north or south. As Georgia’s portion of the waterway deteriorates, more and more of those vessels are forced out to sea between South Carolina and Florida.
The channel also serves as transportation infrastructure for coastal businesses and for the harbors at Savannah and Brunswick. Were deterioration to impair transportation in and out of the ports, the economic impact could be much worse than that estimated by the University.
