The Jasper Port: Separating fact from fiction

Last May, near the end of its 2009 session, the House and Senate of the South Carolina General Assembly voted to include my Jasper port amendment as part of the Ports Authority Restructuring Bill.

For the first time, after decades of shamefully ignoring one of our state's most valuable assets, the legislature declared that developing a new port on the Savannah River in Jasper County was official state policy and that such should be accomplished as expeditiously as possible.

Mission accomplished, right? Nope. Keep reading.

Since the 1970s, our community's leaders -- Bill Bethea and the late Henry Moss most prominently -- have pushed for the development of a Jasper port.

The advantages of the site are well known: It is much closer to the ocean than Savannah's port; it is adjacent to an excellent system of interstate highways and, unlike Charleston's port, has dual rail access; and unlike the port facilities in either Charleston or Savannah, it is surrounded by thousands of undeveloped acres that could easily support maritime and commercially related infrastructure. Last May, their hard work finally paid off.

While explaining my amendment last session, I advised legislators that the Army Corps of Engineers had told port officials in South Carolina and Georgia that each state had the power to stop the other's independent development of the Jasper port, and I pointed out that the initiative by the two states' governors to develop the port cooperatively had paid dividends: Lawsuits between the states had been dismissed, title to the port site had been conveyed by Georgia to a bi-state partnership and engineering for the new terminal was underway.

And so the bi-state approach to the new Jasper port was officially codified as part of our state law. Frankly, many powerful legislators privately despised the idea of developing new ocean terminal facilities outside of Charleston, but there was simply no way for them to publicly oppose a project that would bring billions of dollars in economic development to one of the poorest areas of the state.

But their hatred of the new project abides, and in recent months, there has been a concerted effort to derail it by spreading false claims about the joint venture between South Carolina and Georgia -- to privately undo what the General Assembly has publicly declared to be state policy.

These false claims must be clearly and constantly rebutted with the truth at every turn. Forewarned is forearmed, so here is a primer on how to sort fact from fiction:

The Claim: South Carolina is better off developing the Jasper port on its own, not jointly with Georgia.

The Truth: The Corps of Engineers -- the entity with the power to authorize ports -- has flatly stated that the Jasper port will never be developed if the two states do not work together; both have the power to stop the other's independent development. The "South Carolina should go it alone" argument was argued by Charleston port officials last session and rejected by the state General Assembly.

The Claim: The Jasper port can't be developed because there is a spoil easement on the site, and the Georgia legislature has shown bad faith by failing to take steps to have it released.

The Truth: The easement is held by the Corps of Engineers, not the state of Georgia; there is no legislative action for Georgia to take. In 2007, at the request of the two states' governors, Congress directed the corps to immediately take steps to "remove from the proposed Jasper County port site the easements used by the Corps of Engineers for placement of dredged fill materials for the Savannah Harbor Federal navigation project" and to promote "the proposed bi-state compact between the state of Georgia and the state of South Carolina to own, develop and operate port facilities at the proposed Jasper County port site."

The Claim: The corps can't take steps to release the spoil easement as directed by Congress because it hasn't been given any money.

The Truth: While it is true that Congress told the corps to release the spoil easement but did not provide the funds, the corps has agreed with the Georgia Ports Authority and the South Carolina State Ports Authority to a deal in which the latter provided the necessary funding, and the authorities have already spent several million dollars paying for the studies required by the corps.

The Claim: South Carolina may be forced to pay for Savannah River dredging costs that will only benefit the Port of Savannah's terminal in Garden City.

The Truth: The bi-state Jasper port agreement provides for the two state port authorities to split the portion of the river dredging costs that benefit both parties -- that is, the portion that extends from the proposed Jasper port site seaward into the ocean channel -- but South Carolina's cost-sharing obligation only accrues "upon commencement of construction of Phase I of the Jasper Ocean Terminal." By contract, no cost-sharing obligation in regard to any dredging accrues to South Carolina until the Jasper port is permitted and construction actually commences.

The Claim: Any new business at the Jasper port will come at the expense of business at the Port of Charleston.

The Truth: Independent market studies show that, over the next 15 years, shippers will need our region to annually handle several million shipping boxes more than the ports in Charleston and Savannah can handle.

The "Charleston will lose business" argument was made by Charleston port officials last session and rejected when the South Carolina General Assembly declared that the Jasper port must be built in order to "increase shipping capacity that existing ports in Charleston and Savannah will not be able to handle in the future because of space limitations" (quoting from the bi-state agreement that has been incorporated into state law).

We cannot be passive in the face of these false claims; we cannot allow state policy publicly adopted by elected officials for the good of the entire state to be destroyed behind the scenes by small-minded special interests who wrongly believe this is a "zero sum" game, that something good for Jasper County must necessarily come at the expense of somewhere else.

South Carolina has the chance to do something truly extraordinary. If we continue to work with Georgia on the new Jasper port, then the Charleston-Jasper-Savannah port corridor will become the dominant shipping entry point on the East Coast.

But if we don't, the projected demand that cannot be met by the ports in Charleston and Savannah, and the economic benefits of meeting it, will go to rapidly expanding ports in Norfolk, Va., Wilmington, N.C., or Jacksonville, Fla.

So write a letter to the editor and e-mail your legislator. Tell them that jobs in Jasper County and our infamous "Corridor of Shame" are every bit as important as those in our major metropolitan areas. Let them know you insist that South Carolina continue with what the Commanding General of the Corps (Southeast Division) has called "an extraordinary example of interstate cooperation that should be followed by the rest of the nation."

Let's not fail.