COLUMBIA, S.C. - The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that Jasper County improperly tried to take over land owned by the state of Georgia to use as a private port operation.

The unanimous decision doesn't rule out all efforts to take the land, which is located in Jasper County, owned by the Georgia Department of Transportation and used by the Army Corps of Engineers to dump dredge material from Savannah harbor.

In a decision released Monday, the high court said the county's proposal to lease the land to a private port company failed to meet the standard for condemning property.

Attorneys for the county did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment on what they would do next.

The county had argued that using 1,800 acres on the Savannah River to develop jobs in an impoverished area is a valid public use.

But the court's decision said the county's deal would lease all but 40 acres of the property to a subsidiary of Stevedoring Services of America Inc.

The company "will finance, design, develop, manage and operate the marine terminal," the court wrote. "The terminal itself will be a gated facility with no general right of public access."

That was key, said Georgia DOT attorney Rick Bybee. "What they have to do is come up with a plan to make it a public-use facility," he said.

The county, however, has been unsuccessful in attempts to get public support from either South Carolina or Georgia to build a port at the mouth of the Savannah River.

Earlier this summer, Jasper County Council Chairman George Hood and Councilwoman Gladys Jones said they would consider asking voters to approve bonds to finance the $350 million project if the county lost its case.

The case came to the Supreme Court after Georgia DOT officials appealed a ruling by a lower court judge in April.

Circuit Court Judge Perry Buckner had said the jobs and increased tax base from a steamship terminal amounted to a public use. He said the county could be seen as the legal owner because it would be the leaseholder.

The Supreme Court disagreed and cited a similar case in Charleston in which the city tried to condemn property that it wanted to lease to a hotel as a parking garage. The city ultimately was allowed to take the property but only after it decided to operate the garage itself.