CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – It’s an idea that could send flood water away from places like Conway and into the Atlantic Ocean: a dry canal.
It’s far from a new plan, as it’s been kicked around since the 1930s, but Horry County council wants to revive the proposal for a dry canal.
The county estimates about two thousand homes were damaged by floods after Hurricane Florence.
That’s caused some lawmakers to revisit the proposed dry canal from the Waccamaw River to the ocean.
“The massive amount of water that we got that came down through North Carolina, it’s brought the idea back up again,” said Horry County council chair Mark Lazarus.
It’s called a flood reduction diversion canal. and it’s been proposed several times, including after Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The Army Corps of Engineers studied it in 2009, but it stalled due to environmental concerns.
County council voted Tuesday to ask South Carolina’s members of Congress to revisit that study.
“It’ll get a look anyway and, hopefully, the Corps of Engineers will study it,” Lazarus said. “They’ve got some of the best engineers in the world, so hopefully we can get some resolve to it.”
The 2009 plan lists two options for a canal about 150 feet wide and 18 feet deep. Both would end near the Little River Inlet, where Mullet Creek drains into the Intracoastal Waterway.
The canal could begin in Brunswick County and some lawmakers say it’s important to work with North Carolina.
“The timing is probably pretty good,” said Lazarus. “They just went through their own disaster from Brunswick County, all the way up into the Wilmington area. So we’ll sit down and see what we can come up with.”
The 2009 study also said the project would cost more than $118 million, including construction, buying land and other studies associated with building the canal.
