Coastal Georgia Regional Water Plan (2011)
Historical edition. This independent guide describes the September 2011 plan. It is not an official state publication or a statement of current requirements.
The Coastal Georgia plan is a historical guide to managing water where growing communities, industry, ports and sensitive coastal ecosystems share constrained resources. It is particularly useful for understanding how groundwater limitations and estuarine water-quality concerns can shape infrastructure choices even when a region has access to major rivers.
Document at a glance
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Document | Coastal Georgia Regional Water Plan |
| Edition | September 2011; adopted-plan file recovered from the former water-planning website |
| Responsible council | Coastal Georgia Regional Water Planning Council |
| Length | 169 PDF pages, including front matter |
| Planning horizon | 2050 |
| Historical filename | CGA_Adopted_RWP_000.pdf |
Area and planning context
The edition covers nine southeastern counties and discusses population centers including Savannah, Statesboro, Hinesville, St. Marys and Brunswick. Its setting includes the lower reaches of several river systems, coastal aquifers, marshes, estuaries and barrier-island environments. These different settings make a single regional supply figure an insufficient description of local conditions.
What makes this edition useful
The plan highlights saltwater-intrusion concerns around Savannah-Hilton Head and Brunswick, seasonal flow issues in the Canoochee, Ogeechee and Satilla systems, and dissolved-oxygen constraints, including Savannah Harbor. Its management discussion considers conservation, alternative sources, additional investigation and treatment improvements. Engineering and aquifer-storage options are presented in their planning context, not as evidence that every option was subsequently built or approved.
The discussion above is based on the plan's executive summary. Read the archived source.
What the document contains
Coastal groundwater constraints
The groundwater assessment connects aquifer availability with geographic limits on development. Readers can investigate why the location of a withdrawal and the potential for saltwater intrusion may matter as much as the regional volume of groundwater.
Water-use accounting
Municipal, industrial, agricultural and thermoelectric forecasts are treated separately. Energy withdrawals and returns require particular care: a large withdrawal total need not represent the same level of consumptive use or demand for potable water.
Receiving waters and treatment
The quality analysis considers dissolved oxygen and the ability of rivers and coastal receiving waters to accommodate future wastewater loads. The document connects those limits with changes in treatment, monitoring and pollution management.
Implementation choices
Management and delivery chapters address phased actions, costs, responsible parties, relationships with other plans and benchmarks. These sections help distinguish a regional planning recommendation from a completed local project.
What you can use it for
- Coastal supply research. Examine how saltwater intrusion entered the comparison of groundwater and alternative sources in the first planning cycle.
- Port and industrial context. Understand how water planning connects industrial demand, wastewater treatment and the environmental condition of the lower Savannah system.
- Planning-history comparisons. Compare the 2011 expectations for growth and resource limitations with later plans, while retaining the original scenario dates.
These are suggested research uses of the document, not claims that the council produced it for each of these specific audiences.
A practical reading route
- Start with the executive summary. PDF pages 17, 18, 19 contain the region-specific context and findings used in this guide. PDF page numbers include covers and may differ from the printed labels.
- Use the resource inventory and forecasting chapters to identify the source, user sector, baseline and scenario behind the issue you are studying.
- Follow the capacity comparison into the selected management practices. Read the implementation material before describing a proposal as a commitment, a funded project or a completed intervention.
- Consult the bibliography and referenced technical studies for modeling methods and supporting assumptions. A referenced study or supplementary memorandum is not necessarily included in the main PDF.
Useful questions to take into the source:
- Does a figure include thermoelectric withdrawals and corresponding returns?
- Which coastal sub-area or aquifer does the constraint apply to?
- Was a supply option recommended for investigation or identified as an implementation action?
How to interpret the historical findings
A region-wide supply assessment does not establish that additional groundwater pumping is available at an individual coastal site. Keep aquifer constraints, permitted capacity and local supply infrastructure separate.
Keep observations, forecasts and recommendations separate. A projection for 2050 records what the 2011 planning exercise expected under its assumptions; it does not establish what has happened since. For present-day decisions, check the applicable later plan, source studies and agency guidance.
Read or obtain the original
- Internet Archive: view the September 2011 PDF.
- Internet Archive: open the archived PDF directly. This is the external archived copy, not a PDF hosted by this independent site.
- EPD: official regional plan catalog. For current planning, use this official catalog; its newer editions are separate documents.
- If an older copy is unavailable, ask Georgia EPD at water.planning@dnr.ga.gov for the September 2011 edition.
The archived PDF was retrieved and opened successfully on 31 October 2026. External archives may later change their availability.
May 2011 consultation version
An earlier consultation-stage file was also recovered: WPB201105CGARWP.pdf (167 PDF pages). It is a different edition from the September plan described above. This guide does not assert that the draft and adopted recommendations are identical.
Open the May 2011 consultation-stage PDF in the Internet Archive. Use this version if you are following a citation to the initial recommendations or studying the consultation process. Compare the two originals before attributing a change to the public-review period.
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About this guide
This page is an original editorial description and reading guide. It does not reproduce the report's text, tables, maps or photographs. The document title identifies the source; links lead to third-party repositories or the official planning program. This website is independently operated and is not affiliated with Georgia EPD or the regional council.