RIDGELAND - The S.C. Supreme Court will hear arguments from the Georgia Department of Transportation and Jasper County next month on whether the county had a right to condemn land owned by the agency where a port would be built on the Savannah River.

The state's highest court has set aside 11:30 a.m. June 25 to hear arguments, Jasper County Administrator Henry Moss told the Jasper County Council on Monday night.

A May 13 hearing to decide the fate of the Jasper County deep-water shipping terminal was delayed because Richard Bybee, the Mount Pleasant attorney representing the Georgia Transportation Department, was to have back surgery.

At the time, Moss expressed frustration at another delay in a project that he says will be a $1 billion boon for the poor, rural county.

On Monday, county attorney Tom Johnson said he was optimistic about the Supreme Court hearing because, "I just think we're right."

At issue is 1,800 acres of land on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River owned by the Georgia agency. The land was condemned by Jasper County in 2000 and the Transportation Department filed a lawsuit in October 2000 claiming the county did not have a right to condemn the land.

Jasper County Judge Perry Buckner rejected the suit in April 2002, and the Transportation Department appealed to the Supreme Court later that month.

If the court rules in Jasper County's favor, Johnson said the county would take possession of the land and offer to the Transportation Department its projected value.

If the agency disagreed with the offer and an agreement could not be worked out, that issue, too, would be hashed out in the courts, Johnson said. But he said that the project would be able to move forward simultaneously.

"The phrase, 'It's only money,' applies," Johnson said of a possible disagreement in land value. "That case would not be about property rights, it would be about money."

If it came down to a disagreement in land value, the value of the total 3,000 acres of land owned by the Transportation Department in the area where the port would be built would be increased with the $400 million project, Johnson said.

"That property becomes immensely more valuable when it has a four-lane road and a railroad, and it's next to a port," Johnson said.