Six years later, Corps again fields comments on port expansion

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. - Six years to the day after hundreds objected to State Port Authority plans to build a steamship terminal on Daniel Island, a much smaller crowd turned out Thursday to comment on a revised plan - a $545 million terminal at the old Charleston Naval Base.

About 1,700 people attended a Nov. 17, 1999, public hearing on the Daniel Island plan and opposition eventually scuttled the $1.2 billion Global Gateway Terminal, which would have been one of the largest public works projects in state history.

Thursday, about 400 people turned out for a hearing on the Navy base proposal.

The new terminal is vital both to the Lowcountry and the state, said Bernard Groseclose, the authority's president and chief executive officer.

"To maintain existing business and to build new economic opportunities for our people, the Port of Charleston must expand," he said at the hearing at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center, the same location as six years ago.

Last month the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a draft Environmental Impact Statement on the new plan. The authority has proposed three berths with a total length of 3,500 feet at the old base along with about 200 acres of container storage and processing.

Groseclose said the authority is committed to being a good neighbor.

"For years the Navy operated on the base without a significant negative impact on the surrounding community and we feel we can do the same," he said. "The port expansion site is sufficiently removed from residences to minimize any impacts on their neighborhoods."

The terminal plan calls for a road connection to nearby Interstate 26 and Groseclose said that connection must be built. "If the road is delayed, our project will be delayed," he said.

The impact statement found the terminal will generate almost 11,000 additional truck trips a day on local highways under peak conditions and mean about 150 more steamships a year calling in Charleston.

"With port expansion, we can take what is essentially a hole in the map of North Charleston and transform it into a productive, positive force in the community," Groseclose said.

But city Councilman Kurt Taylor urged officials to minimize the impacts on local neighborhoods.

"While we know ports equal jobs, we also know ports can equal negative impacts for the quality of life of the people who live nearby," he said. "What was referred to as a hole in a map of North Charleston is surrounded by vital neighborhoods ... and other jewels in our lives."

Michael Brown, chairman of the Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities, urged the Corps to reject the terminal project. The alliance represents seven neighborhoods in North Charleston.

Most of the residents of the communities are elderly and live in poverty, Brown said.

"The question we must ask ourselves is how will the terminal improve the communities it will directly impact?" he said.

Nancy Vinson of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League told the Corps the air quality studies don't gauge the impacts on local communities and traffic studies don't reflect the impacts of other new development.

At one point, a speaker asked how many people in the audience favored the plan and about three-quarters stood up.

The study reviewed the old naval base as well as two alternative sites - Daniel Island again and nearby Clouter Island. State lawmakers directed the authority to the Navy base instead of Daniel Island and Clouter Island is used to dispose of silt from dredging the Cooper River shipping channel.

The State Ports Authority has proposed spending about $6 million in mitigation to offset the impacts of building at the old base.

The plan includes $4 million to preserve natural areas on the east branch of the Cooper River as well as $500,000 for the International Center for Birds of Prey near Mount Pleasant. The authority would also donate 17 acres of base land for a university research campus and provide 2 acres for a park in North Charleston.