Ga & SC will move forward to build a shared shipping terminal
Georgia and South Carolina port officials agreed Monday to move forward with studying a proposal to build a shared shipping terminal on the Savannah River, a project that seemed stalled months ago as both sides argued over whether it would benefit or suffer from plans to deepen the harbor to the nearby Port of Savannah.
The proposed joint port in Jasper County, S.C., across the river from Savannah, appeared back on track Monday as the two-state board voted to spend $1 million on the project in the next year. That includes $425,000 for a yearlong study on how best to use clay dredged from the river bottom to raise the elevation of the construction site.
It was the joint port board’s first meeting since March, when the states could only agree to minimal funding that would keep them from having to start over again.
“We’re moving forward in a way that spends our resources efficiently,” said David Posek, chairman of the joint port board and a member of South Carolina’s delegation.
Georgia and South Carolina have spent more than four years and $3.8 million working together on developing a 1,500-acre port in Jasper County, on a site just a few miles downriver from Savannah’s booming port on the river that divides the states. Still in the planning stages, the new port would open at the soonest in 2025.
Jasper County, one of South Carolina’s poorest counties, could desperately use the jobs and development. County officials worried about the project’s future earlier this year when it appeared to be caught up in politics over the states’ rival ports in Savannah and Charleston, which are both scrambling to deepen their harbors to accept supersize cargo ships.
Andrew Fulghum, county administrator for Jasper County, said Monday the vote to keep studying the joint port was “very encouraging news.”
“It shows to me that they’re back on track and focused,” Fulghum said. “That’s what we need.”
Bill Stern, chairman of South Carolina’s State Ports Authority, was the only dissenter from either state Monday. He opposed spending for the dredging study, saying he wanted more information on how the river would be able to handle ship traffic for two ports even if Savannah gets approved to deepen the waterway from 42 to 48 feet.
“I’m not saying don’t do it,” Stern said of the Jasper port project. “I’m just saying we need more data.”
Georgia port officials insist the river will be deep and wide enough for both ports. The joint port board has planned a navigation study, but first needs data from the Army Corps of Engineers that won’t be available until next spring.
South Carolina officials had previously argued that deepening the river would harm the Jasper County port because the Army Corps would use the terminal site for dumping clay dredged from the river. However, engineering consultants have told them the site for the Jasper terminals needs to be raised by 6 feet — and using the Corps’ dredge spoils would save the project $300 million.
The study the two-state board agreed to fund will look at how to best distribute the dredged clay on the site, and will have the consultants negotiating with the Army Corps to give up its rights to dump dredge spoils on the Jasper County site in the future.
Jim Balloun, the board’s vice chairman from Georgia, said funding the study should dispel lingering questions about whether the states are still committed to the Jasper County project.
“We would not be spending the money if we didn’t believe there would be a Jasper port,” Balloun said.
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