By Eric Curl
Jan. 30, 2023 – While significant progress has been made, mother nature has proven to be a formidable challenge to the McQueen’s Island Trail restoration project, as the effort to repair the trail along the Savannah River and US 80 en route to Tybee Island enters its fourth year. Meanwhile, an environmental mishap last fall only added to Chatham County’s woes.
Chatham County officials now say the full restoration will not be completed until the spring after previously reporting “Punch list work,” which has been underway since last May, should be finished by the end of 2022. The project’s completion has been delayed multiple times – with costs increasing from almost $1.5 million to at least almost $2.6 million – due to storms, high tides and shipping traffic.
Locals and visitors are able to once again access a portion of the trail, after the 2-mile stretch west of the Fort Pulaski’s entrance of US 80 was reopened last summer. However, county officials say that the opening of the remaining 3 miles is being held up by a bridge that needs to be replaced, along with needed repairs of tables benches and exercise equipment.
The trail has been difficult to work on due to a variety of challenges, including staffing shortages, accessibility, difficulty mobilizing equipment, tides and wildlife (marsh rice rats chewed through electronics, hoses and various other parts of equipment needed for the project), according to information provided by spokesperson Catherine Glasby.
The information provided by Glasby last week said that repairs to the bridge have been delayed twice due to potential storms and higher than normal tides, while mobilized equipment had to be removed multiple times in the past four months due to potential storms and higher than normal tides that flood the trail and would ruin the equipment.
The bridge being repaired is located near a former parking area off US 80 that has been permanently closed by order of the Georgia Department of Transportation, but residents can park at the Fort Pulaski entrance.
In early November, representatives from Fort Pulaski and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources observed petroleum saturated soils resulting from a release of oil from a crane near the entrance of the park, where the county had been staging materials for the repairs, according to correspondence obtained by Savannah Agenda.
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The park requested from “prompt attention” to the matter and called for the removal of the crane and other materials stored at the site. In addition, park officials called for the county to hire a qualified environmental firm to prepare plans for delineation and removal of the contaminants.
Arrowwood Environmental Group was selected to conduct the cleanup operation, which company officials said would cost about $11,300.
Following damage from Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, the county commission approved the original contract for the stabilization project in December 2018. Last year, the US Army Corps of Engineers ended a study it was conducting in partnership with the county to develop long-term strategies to protect the trail. Focused primarily on protecting the stretch of US 80 to Tybee Island, the corps cut the study short after determining the benefits of preventing the erosion of the trail were not worth the costs.
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