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The Georgia Ports Authority’s permit application to dredge the Savannah River does not call for deepening the channel far enough out for vessels to safely navigate beyond the river’s mouth, the Charleston Branch Pilots’ Association contends.
By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published Oct. 8, 2009
The Georgia Ports Authority’s permit application to dredge the Savannah River does not call for deepening the channel far enough out for vessels to safely navigate beyond the river’s mouth, the Charleston Branch Pilots’ Association contends.
The current proposal calls for deepening into the ocean only about four miles beyond the end of the existing channel, said John Cameron, who represents the association. Large ships would be at risk of grounding just beyond the channel before the ocean naturally reaches a suitable depth, he said.
In one spot, Cameron said, the depth is as shallow as 38 feet. To safely navigate ships to Georgia’s Garden City Terminal or to the proposed Jasper Ocean Terminal, the dredging project would need to extend an additional 13 to 20 miles from the end of the existing channel, he said. The channel dredging also needs to cover a wider expanse than the current proposal calls for, he said.
“We thought that was a little curious,” said Cameron, who was previously the top Coast Guard official in South Carolina and Georgia. Cameron expressed these concerns on Wednesday in Columbia at a legislative port oversight committee hearing.
A muddy debate
His comments mark yet another turn in the Georgia Ports Authority’s complicated and divisive proposal to deepen the Savannah River.
In July, S.C. Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, helped publicly kick off the tenuous discussions when he suggested the state hire a high-powered consultant to “ensure that Georgia doesn’t get that permit.”
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The Georgia Ports Authority has spent a dozen years and nearly $40 million pursuing a permit to deepen the Savannah River from 42 feet to 48 feet for a 22-mile stretch up to its Garden City Terminal (Savannah dock workers are pictured at left. Photo/Molly Parker)
Any discussions in South Carolina that could throw a wrench into Georgia’s deepening plans have not been met kindly by officials there who think South Carolina would be undermining its own economic interests. Those sentiments were summed up in a Sept. 24 editorial in the Savannah Morning News titled Carolina crackpots.
“We’d like to think of it as a river that joins us and not one that divides us,” said Stephen Green, chairman of the Georgia Ports Authority.
Green said he thinks the science supports the deepening and that it can be done in an environmentally friendly manner. “The economics are there to justify it,” he said.
“For South Carolina to spend a considerable amount of money to review what’s been a $37 million, 12-year effort seems a little redundant,” Green said. “We think the Corps of Engineers is a third-party, nonbiased, honest broker.”
South Carolina hires consultant
Green was referencing the S.C. Savannah River Maritime Commission’s recent decision to spend several thousand dollars to hire a consultant to study and review the corps’ draft environmental impact statement due out early next year. The legislatively created commission is charged with protection of South Carolina’s interests related to the Savannah River.
Leatherman’s explosive comment aside, Dean Moss, the commission’s chairman, has said that the consultant will engage in a fair and thorough review of the project. The consultant will assist South Carolina in deciphering what is expected to be a highly scientific and complicated draft permit, he said, studying issues such as how the project might impact the quality of drinking water on Hilton Head Island.
South Carolina has agreed to pick up half the tab for the Savannah River deepening project up to the proposed Jasper Ocean Terminal site. Both states’ ports authorities have agreed to work toward construction of a container terminal there that they would jointly operate.
The Georgia Ports Authority expects the entire Savannah River deepening project to cost $540 million. However, if the proposed deepening does not extend far enough, as the harbor pilots in Charleston have suggested, the cost could be significantly higher. Cameron said the harbor pilots in Savannah have registered a similar concern.
The ‘chicken or the egg thing’
Green said the only way to deepen the harbor to the Jasper site is to leverage Georgia’s plan to deepen to Savannah. That’s because the corps will not allocate dredging funds to support a terminal that does not exist, he said. If South Carolina opposes Georgia’s permit, Green said, the state would also jeopardize any hopes for a shared port terminal.
“Without the deep water to serve the post-Panamax ships, you would never be able to attract the capital to build a terminal that is estimated to cost $1 billion,” he said. “It’s a chicken or the egg thing.”
Charleston Harbor is 45 feet deep and is equipped to handle 90% of the ships on order today, ports authority CEO Jim Newsome said. Newsome, whose father was a top port executive with the Georgia Ports Authority for years, said the S.C. SPA does not have, and does not plan to take, a position on Georgia’s proposal.
Both the S.C. and Georgia ports authorities are slated to receive federal dollars related to harbor deepening projects. Legislation approved by a conference committee has earmarked $1.43 million for the Savannah River harbor expansion project.
That money will be used for construction planning, Georgia Ports Authority spokesman Robert Morris said. South Carolina is slated to receive about $90,000 to update a study regarding its own plans to deepen the harbor beyond 45 feet, SPA spokesman Byron Miller said.
The energy and water appropriations bill includes the following additional dredging funds for both ports:
South Carolina:
Georgia:
Reach Molly Parker at 843-849-3144.
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