By JOSH McCANN
jmccann@islandpacket.com
843-706-8145
Two years ago, Georgia and South Carolina were locked in a series of lawsuits over a proposed Savannah River port in Jasper County.
Since then, the two sides formally agreed to work together to plan a 1,500-acre port in South Carolina that advocates say could make this stretch of the Southeast coast a hub of international commerce.
Despite that progress, murmurs of discord are re-emerging as advocates of ports in nearby Savannah and Charleston act to protect their interests, state Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, said during a meeting of business and civic leaders Friday at Sun City Hilton Head.
Dean Moss, chairman of the Savannah River Maritime Commission, and Bill Bethea, chairman of the Jasper Ocean Terminal Joint Project Office, also spoke during the event.
Davis devoted much of his speech during the Jasper County Chamber of Commerce's "State of the Jasper Ocean Terminal Address" to debunking several pieces of "misinformation" he said could undermine the spirit of bi-state cooperation.
Some observers have claimed any new business at the Jasper port will come at the expense of Charleston and Savannah, for example. But Davis said independent market studies have shown there will be more demand than Savannah and Charleston can handle within 15 to 20 years.
He compared the Jasper port to a crab trying to crawl out of a bucket, only to have other crabs yank it down.
"They're trying to pull the crab back into the bucket," said Davis, a member of the Review and Oversight Commission of the South Carolina State Ports Authority. "We're not going to let that happen."
If the two states don't continue to work together, Davis said, any excess shipping traffic will go to places such as Jacksonville, Fla., Wilmington, N.C., or Norfolk, Va.
Both Georgia and South Carolina have a common interest in securing federal approval to dredge the river -- their shared border -- so it can accommodate the next generation of ships expected to travel through an expanded Panama Canal in 2014, Davis said.
Georgia has worked for years to obtain permission to dredge the river past the proposed Jasper site to Savannah. An oft-delayed environmental impact statement on that proposal is expected in July, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials said this week.
Davis urged leaders on both sides to cooperate in the same manner as those responsible for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.
"If New York and New Jersey can do it, we can do it," Davis said after his speech. "The motivation should be there for both sides."