Before government engineers can deepen one of the nation's busiest seaports to accommodate future trade, they first need to remove a $14 million obstacle from the past — a Confederate warship rotting on the Savannah River bottom for nearly 150 years.
Confederate troops scuttled the ironclad CSS Georgia to prevent its capture by Gen. William T. Sherman when his Union troops took Savannah in December 1864. It's been on the river bottom ever since.
Now,
the Civil War shipwreck sits in the way of a government agency's $653
million plan to deepen the waterway that links the nation's
fourth-busiest container port to the Atlantic Ocean. The ship's remains
are considered so historically significant that dredging the river is
prohibited within 50 feet of the wreckage.
So the Army Corps of Engineers
plans to raise and preserve what's left of the CSS Georgia. The
agency's final report on the project last month estimated the cost to
taxpayers at $14 million. The work could start next year on what's sure
to be a painstaking effort.
More @ Yahoo News
No comments:
Post a Comment