Farmers from across the county and a host of citizens attended a press conference Monday morning to hear more about the proposed referendums on the plans to supply water to the Hyundai Mega Site in Bryan County.
Bulloch Action Coalition (BAC), a 501(c)4 non-profit organization, announced Friday that the organization intends to collect signatures of Bulloch County residents in hopes of overturning the intergovernmental agreement for Bulloch County to provide water and sewer services to Bryan County as well as the Well Mitigation Program approved by county commissioners at the end of June. The purpose of Monday’s press conference was to provide more context to the initiative and officially begin the process required for issues to make their way to a ballot.
Nick Newkirk, a business owner and Republican candidate for Bulloch County Commission opened the press conference with history on the aquifer and shared about the magnitude of the impact of the proposed wells.
“These wells will negatively impact us and the Floridan aquifer. Millions of homes, businesses, and farmers get their water from this aquifer. If you turn on water at the house, if you wash clothes, if you’re watering plants, it all comes from this source. We have to have this water source to survive,” Newkirk said. “These four wells being drilled so close together has never been done to the aquifer in this area. The experts are only guessing what effects it will have on Bulloch County. Right now, they’re predicting a 19-foot drop in a five-mile radius. These are all computer models, so they really don’t know for sure. It could be 30-foot within 10 miles. One thing we do know is that it’s going to change the county forever and will have long lasting impacts for our children and grandchildren.”
Farmer Ray Davis, who is also a county commissioner-elect in District 2A, shared with the crowd about his background in farming as a sixth generation farmer. His property is in proximity to the site of the proposed wells and he and his neighbors are expected to be impacted, based on EPD predictions.
“The best way to win an argument is to start off being right,” Davis said. He said he’s been communicating with officials at the local and state level for two years, but that the rules currently in place continue to be circumvented. “EPD said ‘Hyundai needs the water and we were told to make it work,;” Davis said. He also laid out a timeline which he said has failed to include the citizens of Bulloch County who continue to voice their opposition.
“When our politicians and elected officials and those they appoint push their own agenda against the will of the voters that elected them, it’s time for the people to speak,” Davis said.
Businessman Tim Powell spoke next, sharing details on the timeline of the mega site and the wells, which he said have been met with opposition at public meeting after public meeting. Citing an unofficial petition that began circulating in the summer of 2023, Powell said more than 4,000 Bulloch County residents were willing to voice their opposition to the wells for the Hyundai plant. Powell belabored the county’s lack of transparency throughout the process and the absence of anyone in favor of the wells speaking at meetings held by Bulloch County, the Coastal Regional Water Commission, and Georgia EPD.
“The aquifer that is under our feet right now and the pristine water that it holds does not belong to Hyundai. It does not belong to Brian Kemp or the State of Georgia. It does not belong to EPD, the Bulloch County Commission, the Bulloch County manager Tom Couch, it doesn’t belong to Bryan County, it doesn’t belong to Tripp Tolleson, or the I-16 Corridor Joint Development Authority. This aquifer is a gift from God to the people who reside on top of it. He expects us to protect it, to conserve it, and handle it responsibly. Sucking 60,453,125,000 gallons out of the people’s aquifer in the next 25 years before surface waters are added to the Hyundai plant does not live up to that responsibility.”
The statement was met with a boisterous applause from the audience.
Farmer and lifelong Bulloch County resident Ryan Brannen, who is also a candidate for county commission in District 1A, shared about the hardships farmers are already facing and what will be exacerbated by the plan to provide water to the site in Bryan County.
He urged people to consider that the people who created the problem are currently in charge of the solution.
“I came here today to plead with you for your support and I leave you with these words to ponder on: when the monkeys and baboons heard that the man that used to chase them away from the corn field had died, they celebrated hysterically. The following year, there was no corn. That’s when they realized that the dead man was a farmer. Our citizen’s water supply could very well be in jeopardy. Farmers produce food for the world. We have the safest food supply in the world. I can eat food produced with water. I can’t eat a car.”
Farmer Will Anderson followed Brannen, echoing much of what Brannen said about farming. Anderson said the agreement between Bulloch County and Bryan County to provide water and sewer services is ‘comical’ because the amount of money set aside for issues wouldn’t even touch the lost revenue for a farmer with irrigated land. “There’s not enough money in Savannah,” he said.
“Farmers are thinking about the next generation,” Anderson said, noting that farmers have ‘a strong connection’ to the land.’
“I don’t know if y’all know, not many farmers have a lot of cash built up. Their assets are their land. They want to purchase land, pay for the land, and hopefully rent it out to the next generation. When they’re no longer able to do that, that land will have to be sold and I don’t think people really understand what that’s going to look like when there’s no farmers around… It’s true that we really are the last defense from massive growth. You get rid of farmers, and one way to do that is to cut his water off, his irrigation, he’s not going to have a choice, he’s going to have to sell out.”
Jessica Bennett shared a more personal side of the proposed wells as the property she and her husband, David, live on with their daughters and farm animals. It’s 1.3 miles from the proposed site and well within the five-mile radius that EPD is projecting will see adverse effects.
In an emotional speech, Bennett said “We invested our life savings in the property that we now call our ‘forever home’…We are not the only people in this situation. When you drive along the dirt roads in this county, you will see people who have horses and chickens and goats and pigs and families. If their wells run dry or stop functioning, how will they provide water to their families and their animals?”
Bennett said one county employee told her they could ‘just hook up to the county water system,’ though no such system currently exists and the installation of infrastructure to accommodate such a feat is not underway.
“We chose Bulloch County. We pay property taxes here. We do not pay taxes to have our pristine drinking water stolen out from under us to send it to a foreign industry that will send that water through a process of car manufacturing just to have it released as wastewater. The people of Bulloch County are not being taken care of and our voices are not being heard. I want the people of Bulloch County to have a voice.”
Lawton Sack, co-founder of Bulloch Action Coalition, addressed the politics of the project.
“We’ve been letting them know ‘enough is enough.’ We’ve been labeled trouble makers…but the truth of the matter is that we are an organization that listens to the citizens of Bulloch County and takes the voice of the voiceless to the county commission, to our other local leaders, and, yes, to the state of Georgia. And we’re going to continue doing that. People’s voices need to be heard….they were heard on May 21 in the election here. It was my hope that the county commissioners would wake up and see that this county wanted something different to happen. But all they got was more arrogant and less transparent than they were before.”
Sack said Senator Billy Hickman and Governor Brian Kemp have also failed to answer the difficult questions and hear from the people. He commended State Representative Lehman Franklin who he says has repeatedly sat down with people to answer tough questions and advocate for more answers for those who are asking questions.
Sack detailed the specifics of the questions on overturning the MOU to provide water and sewer services as well as the mitigation plan, which he says still contains no specifics to protect the citizens of Bulloch County. He said the referendum will give everyone a voice at the ballot box – including anyone who may be supportive of the wells.
David Bennett, county commission chair-elect, was the final speaker. He spoke on the importance of leadership, especially when leadership is lacking.
“You’re going to hear people cry and they’re going to moan about this is horrible timing and we’re holding up the growth of Hyundai and everything else – you’re right, we are,” he said after noting that citizens asked commissioners to call for a referendum five months ago, but they would not. “But you know what, the people deserve to have a voice in this process. The JDA has had a voice, Brian Kemp has had a voice, our local county commission’s had a voice, Bryan County’s had a voice. But the people who live here and pay taxes here have not had a voice. It’s time for that to change.”
Bennett closed with a quote from a patch he found this morning, “Be on your guard. Stand firm in faith, be courageous. Be strong. That’s 1 Corinthians 16:13. We need people to be firm in their faith. Be courageous and be strong.”
He also reminded people that 5,100 people voted for him in the primary election in May. “If those 5,100 people come out and sign these petitions, we’re going to get a referendum,” he said.
A question was asked of Bennett at the conclusion of his speech, in which the audience member asked if the state would simply put the wells in without the consent of the citizens through the process of eminent domain if voters overturned the decisions made by commissioners.
“Here’s my thought on that: Come and take it. I don’t think they’ll do it because if they do it, they’re responsible for the mitigation,” Bennett answered. “That’s a risk that we’re taking with this, but I’m going to tell you, if you don’t take the risk, you’ll never know and it’s just a what if.”
Sack echoed that sentiment saying, “We’ve got to get to a place where we don’t react to intimidation. We’ve felt pressure all the way up from the Governor’s office through Senator Billy Hickman where funding for Bulloch County was threatened…we’re going to show them that in Bulloch County, the power is in the hands of the people.”
BAC will work to collect signatures in the coming weeks, beginning with availability before the EPD meeting Tuesday night at Southeast Bulloch High School and Thursday night in Brooklet from 4:00-6:00 p.m. at Little Nicky’s Pizzeria across from Core Credit Union.
Anyone who has questions can visit www.BullochAction.com and contact the organization for specifics.
You can watch the full press conference below.
