RIDGELAND -- Jasper County and S.C. State Ports Authority officials met behind closed doors last week to try to reach an out-of-court settlement in the county's challenged bid to build a port on the Savannah River.

Jasper officials have sought for more than a decade to bring a port to the rural county, but saw its bid to buy 1,863 acres owned by the Georgia Department of Transportation rejected last week, a day after the county filed its paperwork to condemn the land.

The S.C. State Ports Authority entered the fray by filing a lawsuit in January against Jasper in the S.C. Supreme Court seeking declaratory judgment that the State Ports Authority has the sole or superior right to develop ports in the state and on the Savannah River.

Although both sides signed documents agreeing not to disclose the details of Wednesday's

meeting in Ridgeland, Jasper County administrator Andrew Fulghum said Monday that "meeting or no meeting, (the county) is working to bring a port to Jasper."

"It was a pleasure to meet (state ports officials) in person. It was the very first meeting we've had with them," he said.

Fulghum said he attended Wednesday's meeting with deputy county administrators Rose Dobson and Ronnie Malphrus, County Council Chairman George Hood, county attorneys Marvin Jones and Keith Babbcock, State Ports Authority board members Harry Butler and Tom Davis, and three Ports Authority attorneys.

Those who attended the meeting signed a nondisclosure agreement forbidding them from revealing what was said.

Wednesday's meeting "shall be confidential and treated as compromise and settlement negotiations," Fulghum said Monday, reading from the nondisclosure agreement.

State Ports Authority officials couldn't be reached Monday.

While Jasper and state officials continue to debate the future of the proposed port, legislators on both sides of the Savannah River are considering action.

"We have been concerned that the State Ports Authority wants to mothball the site," state

Rep. Thayer Rivers, D-Ridgeland, said Monday. "We're not willing to let that much economic opportunity sit on the sidelines."

Rivers drafted a bill last week that gives the State Ports Authority 12 months to prove it's actively developing a port in Jasper or turn the deal over to the county.

Under the bill, the Ports Authority must produce funding and development plans for the port, public or private, within the 12-month time frame.

Rivers said he won't file the bill until the Ports Authority makes its next move.

"We really don't take the Ports Authority at their word," Sen. Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland, said Monday. "We're waiting to verify they're worthy of our trust and their intentions are honest and clear and direct."

George Ports Authority Chairman Al Scott founded a committee under that group's board of directors to enter discussions with the S.C. State Ports Authority over a proposed Jasper port.

Georgia officials have said the 1,863 acres in question can't be sold to Jasper or South Carolina and must be used as a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spoil site. The corps continually dredges the river to maintain the depth at the Port of Savannah.

Also in Georgia, the Senate is considering legislation that would create a state committee that would study the possibility of building a second port on the Savannah River.

Sen. Scott Richardson, R-Hilton Head Island, is expected to introduce identical legislation in the state Senate this week.