PrintPrintU.S. District Judge Weston Houck recessed the court earlier today after nearly two hours of testimony. He is expected to rule on the Southern Environmental Law Center’s request for injunction to halt construction of the S.C. State Ports Authority’s new terminal on the former Navy base in North Charleston.
By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published Nov. 17, 2009
A ruling is expected later this afternoon on the Southern Environmental Law Center’s request that a federal judge halt construction of the S.C. State Ports Authority’s new North Charleston terminal.
The center, on behalf of the Coastal Conservation League, filed for the temporary injunction in late July, arguing that further construction on the former Navy base terminal could hinder rail and road solutions that have the potential to minimize environmental damage and traffic congestion on Interstate 26.
U.S. District Judge Weston Houck recessed the court earlier today after nearly two hours of testimony by the law center and attorneys representing the Army Corps of Engineers and the ports authority.
Houck was expected to rule on the injunction and two related motions requested by the law center at 2:30 p.m.
The motion to halt construction would have the most significant and immediate impact on the project, as the SPA has already awarded a contract to build a containment wall into the Cooper River as part of the early stages of building the wharf.
That project is under way, in addition to ongoing site preparation work. The SPA argues that a stoppage of that work would turn off a hose pumping capital and jobs into the local economy.
The requested motions are part of a lawsuit pending in federal court in which the law center sued the corps, claiming the permitting agency erred in its approval of the North Charleston terminal. The law center says the corps failed to appropriately consider the impact of trucks on I-26.
In its other motions, the law center is asking the court in a roundabout way to allow the law center, as part of that pending federal case, to argue its merits against the project holistically, as it relates to the corps permit and the impact on I-26 from trucks moving to and from the terminal. As part of that, the law center seeks to bring the Federal Highway Administration into the case.
A U.S. attorney speaking on behalf of the corps said the federal permitting agency for the project studied the terminal’s impact on the interstate. It decided that the port was not responsible for the impact because other regional residential and business growth would cause it to fail anyway. As such, concerns related to I-26 are therefore not a part of the SPA’s permit to construct the new terminal, the corps said.
“Is it really realistic just to consider getting the traffic into the jam but not to consider getting that traffic out of the jam?” Judge Houck asked attorney Randy Lowell, who appeared on behalf of the SPA.
Lowell responded that traffic related to the terminal will be a “small part of a regional problem.” The Boeing Co.’s new Dreamliner assembly plant was repeatedly mentioned as a large project that could have a significant impact on I-26.
Months ago, the law center requested that the SPA wait to issue the contract for the containment wall, the first project at the site that structurally begins the transformation of southern end of the defunct Navy base into a working terminal.
But the SPA had long held that construction must stay on track so that it can open in 2014, the completion date for the Panama Canal expansion, which will open up an expanse through which bigger ships can move to the East Coast. Given the three-year backslide in global trade, the SPA has moved its completion date back to 2017. Still, Lowell said, it’s important that the SPA show global shipping customers it will be a “serious contender in the future.”
The law center’s Blan Holman argued that the SPA’s current capacity among its existing terminals means there’s no need to rush the new one. Container traffic through the Port of Charleston has dropped off to the levels of a decade ago.
“What it does show is, ‘Huh — we have some time to figure this out,’” Holman said.
Reach Molly Parker at 843-849-3144.
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