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Port volume increases 14%, revenues up 18%
Dispute over development of Jasper County port operation continues
By Martin Sinderman
Contributing Writer
It has been a busy summer for the South Carolina State Ports Authority. The SPA closed out a record year in terms of container volume and revenues, received news of funding for an important component of its expansion at the former Charleston Naval Complex and continued its efforts to develop a new port on the Savannah River in Jasper County.
The SPA reports that the Port of Charleston handled 1.97 million 20-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, during its July 1–June 30, 2005, fiscal year, an increase of 14% from the previous year. Total SPA breakbulk tonnage also rose 14% to nearly 2 million tons. Meanwhile, operating revenues totaled $138 million, up 18% from fiscal year 2004.
Those numbers stack up against those generated by the Port of Savannah for the same period. According to a statement from the office of Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, the Savannah facility handled 1.76 million TEUs during its fiscal year 2005, a 12% increase from the previous year. At the same time, breakbulk tonnage for all Georgia Ports Authority terminals rose 24.4%, reaching a total of nearly 2.9 million tons.
Trade with India was the No. 1 line of SPA business last year, according to spokesman Byron Miller.
“We saw close to 70 percent growth in India business, overwhelmingly in the form of fashion and apparel-related imports,” he said, with Central America shipping also an up-and-coming, predominately export business that is experiencing double-digit growth.
In the expansion department, some $6 million in environmental, engineering and mitigation studies are underway for the new, 280-acre, three-berth container terminal at the former Charleston Naval Complex in North Charleston.
The project is on track for a permitting decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in August 2006, according to Miller. Some $10 million in federal funding has been allocated to permitting, design and engineering work for a direct access road that both avoids existing residential neighborhoods and links the south end of the project to I-26.
Meanwhile, the fight over who gets to build, control and operate a port in Jasper County continues.
On Aug. 16, the SPA board, acting on a statement and motion by member Carroll A. Campbell III, voted 5-3 to limit private-sector participation in any Jasper port project, as well as in the North Charleston expansion.
The action was aimed at proposed privatized port development strategies wherein the SPA would assume the role of landlord, with private-sector marine terminal companies renting the port facilities while operating them on a day-to-day basis.
The SPA has been locked in a legal and political battle with Jasper County over who has the ultimate authority to develop a $450 million port on the Savannah River.
Jasper has previously announced its intent to enter into a landlord/tenant arrangement with Seattle-based SSA Marine, a privately held, global container terminal operator and cargo handling company, to develop this facility. The SPA has challenged the county’s right to do this; the dispute goes before the S.C. Supreme Court on Sept. 20.
Campbell cited private marine terminal companies’ reliance on organized labor as the main reason South Carolina ports should not be developed and run in this fashion.
“While privatization is a good thing, privatization of our state’s public ports—the so-called landlord/tenant model—is a very bad idea,” reads Campbell’s statement. “When it comes to ports, privatization means unionization. Privatization would open this state to an unprecedented level of union activity.”
The ranks of longshoremen, mechanics, clerks and container checkers employed by private stevedoring and terminal companies at SPA facilities are members of the International Longshoremen’s Association. However, all SPA employees are non-union, state of South Carolina employees with no collective bargaining rights. This latter group, according to Miller, basically fills skilled equipment-handling positions.
SPA staff is now in the process of preparing a detailed request for proposals that will be sent to a number of private ocean carriers and marine terminal operators. This part of the competitive bidding process will result “in some kind of private participation” in the North Charleston and Jasper County projects, says Miller, adding, “What our board did (in passing Campbell’s motion) was to provide some structure and guidelines.”
Some feel otherwise.
“(The SPA vote) is clearly another action by them to try to prohibit Jasper County from developing a terminal,” says Andrew Fulghum, a Jasper County administrator. “Beyond that, in looking at a new terminal in Jasper and expanding in North Charleston, (the SPA has) effectively eliminated any private partnership, ensuring that neither of these projects will move forward.”
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