By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

The legal wrangling over who will get to build a multi-million dollar cargo container terminal on a Savannah River site within the confines of Jasper County continues to heat up.

On Tuesday, the South Carolina State Ports Authority called on the state Supreme Court to enforce its recent ruling that Jasper County has a right to develop a port along the Savannah River but that the SPA has priority over the land.

The justices also said the state has priority when it comes to taking over the land that would be used for a shipping terminal. Acting on that ruling, the SPA immediately began condemnation proceedings against the land’s owner, the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Less than a week later, however, a bill was introduced in the South Carolina House of Representatives that would prevent the SPA from proceeding to acquire the land without the permission of state lawmakers.

Then Jasper County filed a motion in the Court of Common Pleas to intervene in the SPA’s condemnation attempt.

The motion contends the SPA’s condemnation suit is legally flawed because it fails to acknowledge that Jasper County has a claim to the 1,800-acre parcel in dispute. Jasper County filed for condemnation first and has an elaborate development plan, county officials said.

“Jasper County has a sizable financial interest in that land,” County Administrator Andrew Fulghum said in a written statement. “We are suing, in part, to make sure the county is (acknowledged).”

In his own written statement, SPA Chairman Bill Stern said, “without an injunction, both the (SPA) and the county will continue with rival, not equivalent, condemnations of the same site. The current situation presents a need for relief, and we hope the court will consider our request.”

The SPA and Jasper County have been at loggerheads over who has the right to develop a $500 million container port on the Savannah River since January 2005 when the county reached a development agreement with a private port builder and filed to condemn the land.

Far from resolving the dispute, the Supreme Court ruling gave both parties just enough room for each to declare victory. The court found that Jasper County has a right to build a container terminal if it wants—a finding that flew in the face of a SPA claim that it had been granted sole authority to own and operate ports in the state—but that the ports authority has eminent domain powers that supersede the county’s.

The SPA filed to condemn the land and included a $9.3 million check, which is $800,000 more than Jasper County’s $8.5 million offer made to Georgia in January 2005. The Georgia DOT declined to accept the monetary offer, preferring to see how the dispute plays out in court.

With two condemnations for the same land in the same court, the SPA injunction aims to stop Jasper County from proceeding with its plan.

The move appears only to have inspired Jasper County to dig its heals in further.

“We have a plan and financing to make this project a reality while providing wide public benefits,” said Jasper County Council Chairman George Hood in a written statement. “We don’t intend to let the Ports Authority stop our progress or to just sit on the land until they eventually come up with a plan of their own.”

Dan McCue is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dmccue@charlestonbusiness.com.

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