Georgia Ports Authority has asked the federal government to study deepening Savannah Harbor again, barely four years after the last dredge wrapped. The letter of intent, sent to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, opens a feasibility study that could push the channel past its current 47 feet and add passing lanes for two-way ship traffic. The study runs under Section 203 of the Water Resources Development Act.
There is a catch buried in that history. Each time Savannah finishes deepening, the ships calling on it have already grown larger than the channel was built to hold. This study has to beat that clock.
Georgia Ports Files to Reopen the Savannah Dredge Question
The Georgia Ports Authority (GPA, the state agency that runs the ports of Savannah and Brunswick) sent the letter of intent to Adam Telle, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and announced the move on June 2. It starts a feasibility study to deepen and widen the Savannah River shipping channel and to carve passing lanes so arriving and departing vessels can transit at the same time.
The work was authorized under WRDA 2024, the most recent water-infrastructure law from Congress, and carries an initial appropriation of $500,000 in the fiscal 2026 budget. GPA will run the study with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which provides technical assistance and keeps final review and approval, including the environmental and economic analyses. Griff Lynch, the authority’s president and chief executive, tied the channel work to a wider expansion already under construction.
Channel improvements are the next step in preparing Savannah for the future. Along with five new container berths on the way, the new Gainesville Inland Port, and multiple Georgia DOT projects, the pieces are all coming together in Savannah as the gateway of choice for the Southeast.
Lynch made the remark in the GPA announcement. The study itself decides nothing yet. It sets up the case the Corps will eventually take back to Congress.
Why a Four-Year-Old Channel Already Falls Short
Ships Built Past the Channel
Savannah is now handling container ships that carry 16,000 or more twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard box-count measure for container traffic. That is roughly twice the size the channel was designed to accommodate. Those vessels arrive partly loaded or wait on the tide to clear the bottom, which slows the whole berth-to-berth cycle. A deeper, wider channel lets them load more cargo per call and skip the tidal window.
The volume behind that demand is real. GPA moved 5.7 million TEU across its terminals in fiscal 2025, up 8.6 percent and its second-busiest year on record, according to the authority’s fiscal 2025 container trade report.
Charleston Sets the Benchmark
Just up the coast, Charleston finished its own deepening and now claims the deepest harbor on the US East Coast at 52 feet, with a 54-foot entrance channel. Savannah’s 47 feet sits five feet shallower. That gap is the quiet pressure behind the new study, and it is the same race covered in the site’s earlier look at the East Coast depth competition.
- 47 feet is the current authorized depth of the Savannah channel.
- 16,000-plus TEU vessels now call at the port, about double the design size.
- 5.7 million TEU moved through Georgia’s ports in fiscal 2025.
- 52 feet is Charleston’s depth, the deepest on the East Coast.
Three Deepenings, Each One Late to the Ships
The Savannah River channel has been expanded for navigation three times, and the timeline tells you why a fourth is already on the table. In 1945 the river was dredged to 38 feet. In 1994 it went to 42 feet. In 2022 the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, known as SHEP, brought it to 47 feet.
From 38 Feet to 47
| Completed | Channel depth | Design context |
|---|---|---|
| 1945 | 38 feet | Early postwar cargo vessels |
| 1994 | 42 feet | Mid-size container ships |
| 2022 (SHEP) | 47 feet | Built around 8,200-TEU workhorses |
| Proposed | To be set by study | 16,000-plus TEU and larger |
Two Decades, One Outdated Design
SHEP cost about $973 million and took roughly seven years to build. The harder number is the lag: federal impact studies and construction meant the project finished more than 20 years after its original design, which assumed 8,200-TEU vessels would be the main workhorses on the East Coast. By the time the dredge boats left, ships nearly twice that size were already routine. The Corps’ own background on the program is laid out in its Savannah Harbor Expansion overview. The new study starts the same long process, this time aiming at a moving target that has not stopped moving.
What the Feasibility Study Has to Settle
Before any dredge contract gets signed, the study has to answer a sequence of questions, and each one feeds the next. The Corps retains the final say on all of them.
- Design vessel. The study projects which ship class will be most common in Savannah’s future, then sizes the channel to that vessel rather than today’s fleet.
- Estuary impact. Engineers assess how deepening and widening would affect the Savannah River estuary, the salt-marsh system the channel cuts through, a review that drove much of SHEP’s cost and schedule.
- National economic benefit. The analysis weighs construction cost against benefit to the nation. The previous feasibility work found $7.70 in economic benefit for every dollar spent on construction, the kind of ratio that helps a project survive the federal queue.
Only after those pieces line up does the Corps recommend to Congress whether to expand the harbor at all. Approval there is not a formality. It is the gate that decides whether the project exists.
The Buildout Behind the Berths
The channel study does not stand alone. GPA is spending across the network so the landside can keep pace with whatever depth the river ends up at, and several of those pieces are already in the ground.
- Five new container berths are on the way at the Port of Savannah, adding ship-handling capacity at the dock.
- The new Gainesville Inland Port extends the port’s reach inland by rail, pulling boxes off coastal roads.
- A $44.5 million U.S. Customs inspection warehouse came online at Garden City Terminal in 2025, more than doubling federal inspection space to 300,000 square feet with refrigerated capacity for agricultural imports.
- Multiple Georgia Department of Transportation projects feed the highway and rail links around the terminals.
Cold cargo is part of why that warehouse matters. Savannah’s frozen poultry export growth leans on exactly this kind of refrigerated handling, and you can track the wider container picture through the authority’s port traffic statistics. Deepening the channel without the berths, rail and inspection space behind it would just move the bottleneck onshore.
Section 203 and the Bet on Speed
The Study Sponsor Leads, the Corps Signs Off
The choice of Section 203 is the most telling detail. Under that authority, the non-federal sponsor, in this case GPA, leads the feasibility study itself instead of waiting in line for the Corps to schedule and run it. The Corps still provides technical help and keeps final review and approval, including the environmental and economic findings. The idea is to compress the front end, the years of analysis that pushed SHEP so far behind its own design.
The Clock That Beat the Last Project
That is the bet GPA is placing. Board Chairman Alec Poitevint framed the filing as getting ahead of demand rather than reacting to it, calling it a proactive step to keep the Port of Savannah competitive. The math points the same way. A port serving 16,000-TEU ships in a channel built for half that size loses cargo per call and time on the tide, and every year of delay widens the gap with deeper rivals.
The path from here is long and fixed. The study has to land, the Corps has to recommend deepening to Congress, lawmakers have to authorize it, and federal and non-federal money has to follow before a single dredge boat moves. SHEP needed more than two decades to walk that route. The ships did not wait then, and there is no sign they will wait now.
