Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Tommy Moore blamed Gov. Mark Sanford on Monday for the legal stalemate blocking development of a port facility on the Savannah River in Jasper County.

Moore said Sanford should have been able to bridge differences between Jasper County and the S.C. State Ports Authority, whose competing plans to build the port already have landed before the S.C. Supreme Court and now are before a Circuit Court judge.

"This should never have become a battle between competing interests in South Carolina," Moore, a state senator from Aiken County, said. "The infighting that's going on damages our state and, unfortunately, is typical of the current governor's way of doing business."

State Democrats have taken the offensive in recent days against Sanford's record on job creation, blaming the governor for a state unemployment rate second-worst in the nation.

Moore included the Jasper port as part of an economic development plan he outlined last week. Jasper County officials have said the port could bring as many as 90,000 jobs.

Sanford's camp has defended the governor's record on jobs, saying 123,000 more South Carolinians are working than when Sanford took office in 2003.

Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer brushed aside Moore's criticism Monday and said the port project is moving forward under the Ports Authority, which plans to spend $1.6 million this year on preliminary studies of the port site.

"We want to see the project done as quickly as possible, and the Ports Authority is taking steps," he said. "Unless the Ports Authority indicates its unwillingness to move forward, this is the track we're going to continue on."

Jasper County Administrator Andrew Fulghum, who has emerged as a sharp critic of the Ports Authority, said Monday he was "disappointed" Sanford hadn't taken a more active role in the dispute.

"This is clearly a major project," Fulghum said. "I would have expected his office to serve as a facilitator to get this project moving. I thought they would take a more active role."

Jasper has argued it should be allowed to build the port, while the Ports Authority claims it has the sole right to operate ports in South Carolina.

County officials said the state Ports Authority had for years rebuffed the county's plea for a port. County lawyers have argued as recently as last month that the Ports Authority does not intend to build a port in Jasper, because it fears competition with the Port of Charleston. The Ports Authority has denied that.

Jasper County signed a $450 million contract last year with a private port developer to build the facility. Both that plan and the Ports Authority plan would pay for the port by essentially borrowing on future port revenues.

Ports Authority Spokesman Byron Miller said the authority's plan would see the Jasper port finished within seven years. But serious work cannot begin until the legal issues are resolved, he said.

The county and Ports Authority have filed suits seeking to condemn the port site, which is owned by the Georgia Department of Transportation. Georgia has challenged both suits. Those cases have been consolidated and are before a Circuit Court judge.

Outgoing state Rep. Thayer Rivers, D-Ridgeland, said he believed it was well within the governor's power to push the deal through.

"The Ports Authority works for him," Rivers said, noting that the governor appoints the authority's board of directors. "He could have been a great deal more helpful than he has been."

Rivers said he sympathized with the governor's desire to see the port project move forward under state control but said he believed the Ports Authority could take 15 years to build the port because of its ongoing expansion of the Port of Charleston.

"(Sanford's) position is a reasonable long-term position," Rivers said. "But in a rural county like Jasper, knowing that in 15 years a whole generation of people are going to have to go elsewhere for work, it's exasperating."