CHARLESTON, S.C. - The South Carolina State Ports Authority has awarded a $1.8 million contract for a study to determine the environmental impact of building a new container port at the old Charleston Naval Base.

The contract was awarded Tuesday to Applied Technology & Management.

It was while a similar study was being conducted several years ago that public opposition mounted to authority plans to build a terminal on Daniel Island. The agency spent three years and $3 million on that project before lawmakers directed the authority to consider a site at the old base.

The agency owns 1,300 acres on Daniel Island and is studying how to dispose of some, or all, of that property to pay for the new terminal.

Gov. Mark Sanford, the General Assembly, North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey and members of the state congressional delegation all asked regulators to expedite the permitting process.

The authority has said that, eventually, as many as five shipping terminals could be built at the base although its application deals only with three.

Megan Terebus of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League says the environmental group will ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the lead permitting agency, to study the impact of an entire five-berth terminal.

"The implications are humongous for the surrounding area," Terebus said. "We want the cumulative impact to be known."

"We hope the SPA has learned from past mistakes and doesn't ignore the Lowcountry's input this time around," said Frank Heindel of a group called Contain the Port which opposed the Daniel Island expansion.

The corps will now schedule public meetings to discuss what the study should include.

The study could take as long as two years, after which the corps will decide whether to issue a permit. Construction could take five years, said Bernard Groseclose Jr., the authority's president and chief executive officer.

When the proposed contract was first considered in June, some new members of the authority board appointed by Gov. Mark Sanford objected to the $2.5 million price and lack of competing bids.

Working with corps officials, the authority staff returned with a revised $1.8 million environmental study, including a $60,000 contract for Davis and Floyd Engineering to review the main contractor's billing.

Information from: The Post And Courier