To keep pace with projected residential and industrial growth, Savannah expects to increase its drinking-water capacity by more than 72% over the next two decades.
The ultimate projected cost of expanding Savannah’s Industrial and Domestic Water Treatment Plant to meet that increase is $500 million, City Manager Jay Melder said Thursday.
The bulk of that burden likely will be borne by a handful of large industrial users, not residential and commercial customers, Melder explained in a presentation to City Council members.
“Since the beginning of the plant (in 1947), their rates have been based off of what we’ve needed to do to upgrade (the I&D facility),” Melder said of the system’s biggest consumers. “Our goal is really to keep rates as low as we can for our average residential users … to make sure that we don’t see a large increase in our bills.”
However, the additional water will come at a higher cost.
About 20 million gallons of the city’s current 58-million-gallon-per-day capacity comes from the underground Floridan Aquifer , which is considered one of the world’s cleanest natural water sources.