US agency to reexamine permit for Hyundai's $7.6 billion electric vehicle plant in Georgia

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A federal agency plans to reassess its environmental permit for Hyundai's $7.6 billion electric vehicle plant in Georgia after a conservation group complained that regulators failed to properly examine the sprawling factory's potential impacts on the area's water supply.

The Army Corps of Engineers said in a letter Friday that state and local economic development agencies that applied for the project's 2022 permit never mentioned Hyundai wanted to withdraw up to 6.6 million gallons (25 million liters) per day from the underground aquifer that's a major regional source of drinking water.

Details of the plant's needs came out earlier this year as the Georgia Environmental Protection Division considered a proposal for four new wells to supply water to the auto factory. As a result, the Army Corps said it will revisit its finding that the project would have “negligible impacts."

The Army Corps sent a similar letter to the Ogeechee Riverkeeper conservation group, which gave notice in June that it planned to sue if the agency refused to revisit the permit issued for the Hyundai project in October 2022.

“The concentration of that pumping in one area is going to have some impacts locally, such as on domestic and agricultural wells,” said Ben Kirsch, the riverkeeper group's legal director. “The big question we've had throughout all this is what impact will it have on other resources resources — natural springs in the area, wetlands, tributaries and streams.”

The Army Corps' decision comes as Hyundai pushes to start production before the end of the year at its 2,900-acre (1,170-hectare) plant in Bryan County west of Savannah. The site will produce EVs and the batteries that power them. The South Korean automaker plans to employee 8,000 workers at the...