Beaufort County lawmakers say they want the State Ports Authority to make building the proposed Jasper Ocean Terminal a priority.
Rep. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, said at a recent town hall meeting on St. Helena Island that the agency seems more concerned with protecting the Port of Charleston than building a deep-water ocean terminal on the Jasper County side of the Savannah River.
"What we're going to have is a real opportunity to put real, skilled labor to work" if the Jasper port is built, she said. "We need to see a Ports Authority that's looking out for the whole state."
To that end, state Sens. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, and Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland, proposed an amendment to Senate Bill 351 that calls for the Ports Authority to do whatever it can to expedite the Jasper port.
The bill also lays out a new structure for the Ports Authority. It passed the Senate on Feb. 18 and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Davis voted against the final version of the bill because it contained a provision that would prevent the governor from removing members of the Ports Authority board.
However, Davis said he was pleased the measure passed with an amendment recommending the Jasper port be built as soon as possible.
Engineers from Moffatt and Nichol, the firm studying the feasibility of the project and spearheading its development, issued a report Feb. 16 that said the first phase of the deep-water terminal and its infrastructure could be ready for ships between 2019 and 2021.
That's earlier than 2024, the year engineers projected in early February as being the most economically viable for the port's opening. But the new date still is not soon enough for Davis, who has said he believes the Ports Authority is dragging its feet with Jasper because it would rather expand the Port of Charleston instead.
"I still challenge that estimate and believe that if we are truly committed to making the Jasper port a reality as soon as possible, it could be built earlier than 2019," said Davis, a former member of the Ports Authority board and former chief of staff to Gov. Mark Sanford. "But at this point, all anyone is doing is hazarding a guess."
The bill also instructs the Ports Authority to seek private money to subsidize the Jasper port, the only way to raise the $1 billion or more needed to fund the project, Davis said.
"Our legislature and Ports Authority have been biased against leveraging private capital from private companies to build ports, and that bias is dangerous to the prospects of a port in Jasper," Davis said.
The amendment also says South Carolina must enter an agreement with Georgia by Dec. 31, 2010, to form a corporation that would own the port.
"I believe that for so long as there are members of the ports authorities of the two states materially involved in calling the shots at Jasper, a bias will exist in favor of the existing ports in Savannah and Charleston," Davis said. "The port in Jasper needs an entity that will champion it and only it."
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