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States teaming up to thwart port, lawyer says

S.C., Georgia 'in cahoots' to prevent Jasper County from building terminal

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RIDGELAND -- Saying Georgia and the South Carolina Ports Authority are "in cahoots" to delay construction of a port in Jasper County, lawyers for the county fought Friday to keep alive Jasper's hopes of building the port itself.

The county and the Ports Authority have filed competing cases seeking to condemn Georgia-owned land across from the Port of Savannah, where both entities say they want to build a port. With the South Carolina Supreme Court writing in April that the Ports Authority's claim to the land has priority over the county's, county lawyers argued Friday that they should be allowed to challenge the Ports Authority's condemnation effort.

"Our case is that the Ports Authority is condemning the land in an anti-competition effort and will warehouse the land," said Cam Lewis, who is representing the county. "They have no real intention to build a port."

Lewis said Georgia was fighting to block the Jasper County port because it feared competition with the Port of Savannah, while the South Carolina Ports Authority was motivated by similar concern for the Port of Charleston.

"They're in cahoots on delay," he said.

A lawyer for the Ports Authority, Mitch Brown, denied that charge and criticized what he called county officials' "poor policy" of questioning the Ports Authority's intent.

"The (Ports Authority) board passed a unanimous motion saying they wanted this land for port operation," he said.

Brown said Jasper County lacked legal standing to intervene in the case between the Ports Authority and Georgia.

Those arguments took place before a Circuit Court judge in Jasper County Council chambers -- the latest theater of a legal battle that has landed before the South Carolina Supreme Court and could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Roger Young said he would rule on the county's motion to intervene and other matters within a month.

Georgia has filed challenges to both efforts to condemn the land. Rick Bybee, a lawyer for the Georgia Department of Transportation, essentially asked the judge Friday to choose one of the two lawsuits to go forward.

"One of the issues still hanging out there is which entity we're facing," he said. "I'd like to see an answer to that."

Young said a condemnation battle between Georgia and the Ports Authority would become an interstate case that likely would take place before the U.S. Supreme Court and could take years.

Jasper County filed its condemnation suit in January 2005 after it signed a $450 million contract with a Seattle-based port builder to construct and operate the port. County officials said they had tried for years to get the Ports Authority to build a port on Jasper's riverbanks.

The Ports Authority filed its condemnation suit later that month and filed a separate suit challenging Jasper County's right to build a port. The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in April that Jasper County does have the right to build a port but said the Ports Authority's condemnation effort has first priority.

The Ports Authority budgeted $1.6 million this year for preliminary work on the 1,800-acre site -- studies county officials said would replicate work already completed by the county.

Ports Authority spokesman Byron Miller said last month that the authority was aware of the county's studies but that further work was needed.

Contact Mike Gisick at 298-1057 or .