More reasons Savannah can’t ever compete with deeper Miami port:

The channel would be so narrow it would only permit one way traffic

 

BY BILL DAVIS

 John Cameron, a retired captain in the U.S. Coast Guard and the executive director of the Charleston Branch Pilots Association, said channel expansion in Savannah would have limited returns because the narrow waterway precludes two-way shipping traffic, which Charleston’s harbor enjoys.

 Continued population and economic growth in the Southeast has created a regional call for port expansion that is echoing across the border between South Carolina and Georgia — especially along the Savannah River, a shared border between the two states.

 More people with more money will mean more demand for shipped goods. To quote Roy Scheider’s famous line from the movie Jaws: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

 

And those bigger boats will be able to sail through the Panama Canal beginning in the fall of 2014, the 100-year anniversary of the opening of the canal. Post-Panamax container ships, as they are called, have already been built and dwarf even aircraft carriers.

 

According to the South Carolina State Ports Authority, millions of container units of goods bound for our region are currently unloaded along the West Coast and then sent here along trucking routes and train lines. With the looming expansion of the Panama Canal, those goods now should be able to be unloaded on the East Coast. The problem? Some ports will have to widen existing channels and deepen rivers to accommodate the new massive mega-carriers.

 

Currently, Georgia is in the process of expanding its Savannah River port in Garden City in such a way that has many in the South Carolina Legislature, not to mention the maritime industry, concerned.

 

The Savannah River widening and deepening project could, according to South Carolina Sen. Larry Grooms (R-Bonneau), chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, scuttle a joint South Carolina-Georgia project to construct a mega-port in Jasper County. The Jasper port would be 12 miles from an Atlantic sea buoy — 10 miles closer than the Garden City facility.

 

Grooms said the Garden City project would essentially “wear out” the Savannah River environmentally because two ports would share the same river.

 

How? He said any widening and deepening of the existing channel in the river all the way to Garden City would introduce more and more saltwater to the waterway that would lower oxygen levels to the point that federal guidelines would prohibit the construction of Jasper.

 

“To hear Georgia, it’s Garden City and Jasper,” said Grooms. “But the way I see it, it’s Jasper or nothing.”

 

Georgia Ports Authority executive director Curtis Foltz walked into the lion’s den last week, having agreed to speak at a Charleston maritime association dinner. Before he left his Savannah office, Foltz, who worked at the Charleston port facility for several years in the 1990s, preached that a common tide would float all boats. Foltz’s reading of the region’s growing demographics tells him that an expanded Savannah facility, a Charleston facility and a Jasper facility are all needed to meet the region’s growing demands over the next 20 years.

 

John Cameron, a retired captain in the U.S. Coast Guard and the executive director of the Charleston Branch Pilots Association, has plotted a third course. He has produced a report on South Carolina’s interest in the Savannah widening effort and presented those findings to Grooms’ committee.

 

Cameron, whose organization’s members pilot foreign and U.S. ships bound for foreign waters while in Charleston harbor, said he understands how the expansion of the current channel along the Savannah River would benefit Georgia. But he, too, worried that more seawater would kill not only some of the environment there, but also future plans for Jasper. He also said channel expansion in Savannah would have limited returns because the narrow waterway precludes two-way shipping traffic, which Charleston’s harbor enjoys.

 

Cameron has instead championed a limited deepening and widening leading up to the current Garden City facility that wouldn’t threaten the future of either Jasper or Charleston.

 

Cameron is also worried that expansion now might also exhaust political will for the Jasper project, especially since the federal government would have to spend nearly $600 million to dredge for Garden City versus half of that to deepen the Charleston harbor.

 

Crystal ball: The ships are going to come and the region will have to figure out the best way to welcome them, unload them, fill them back up and send them back out on their way. The question is whether Georgia will expand at Garden City in such a short-term way that it actually hampers future port expansions? Or will Georgia and South Carolina create a plan that would navigate smooth sailing for all involved? 

 

Bill Davis is editor of Statehouse Report. He can be reached at billdavis@statehousereport.com. Let us know what you think: Email news@free-times.com or comment below.

 

Comments

[Peter Woodfellow]

They we have to extend is at one point though, shipping has expanded so much on the Savannah.