SPA prevails

Workers can keep building a containment wall in the Cooper River after a federal judge on Tuesday denied an environmental group's request to halt construction on the State Ports Authority's new shipping terminal on the former Navy base.

After hearing arguments, U.S. District Court Judge C. Weston Houck denied a motion for an injunction that would have stopped some work at the North Charleston site. He said he took into consideration the status of the project and the length of time the Coastal Conservation League waited to file its request.

His decision did not rule out future injunctions as the years-long battle between the environmental group and the ports authority continues.

"I'm not foreclosing that the plaintiff could raise that issue again," he said.

SPA Chief Executive Jim Newsome attended the hearing but declined to comment until he meets with the group's legal team. Spokesman Byron Miller later released a statement that said his agency was pleased with the ruling.

"At a time when jobs are critical to the Charleston area and the entire state, it is vital that we move forward with this project," he said, noting that the project is expected to create 720 jobs.

The court injunction would have stopped only the federally approved containment wall project. Site work that is covered under state permits would not have been affected.

The Charleston-based environmental group had argued in a 30-page lawsuit filed two years ago that the Army Corps of Engineers failed to adequately analyze all the environmental and traffic-related impacts of the terminal when it issued the federal permit for the project.

The Corps of Engineers issued a federal permit to the SPA for the long-delayed project in April 2007. It also approved an access road that would link the new terminal to Interstate 26.

The lawsuit alleges that the Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to assess all potential environmental effects; "piece-mealing" its review of different aspects of the project; not fully considering reasonable alternatives; and not re-evaluating the project after new information came to light.

Work on the three-berth cargo terminal began in May 2007, and the first phase is expected to open around 2017, five years later than originally planned. Some of that delay is tied to the slowdown in shipping and the global economy.

Most of the arguments at the hearing centered on proposed transportation projects tied to the new terminal.

They include a $250 million access road linking the Navy base port with I-26 by way of an interchange near Exit 217. The new road would add about 10,000 vehicles a day to I-26, including about 7,000 truck trips, according to the complaint.

League attorney Blan Holman said an environmental impact study that the Corps of Engineers oversaw did not rigorously investigate the use of rail or look at the alternatives to handling port-related truck traffic.

One reason, he said, was that the SPA told the federal agency that rail was not planned for the new terminal.

"It's not their job to be spoon-fed," he said of Corps of Engineers officials.

The SPA said its plans for the Navy base terminal were scrutinized for four years by numerous regulatory agencies at a cost of about $5 million.

"Obviously, the Corps of Engineers and the cooperating agencies working on the permit took a hard look at this project," Miller said in a statement.

In a separate motion, Houck agreed to include the Federal Highway Administration as a defendant in the case. Nancy Vinson of the Coastal Conservation League applauded the move, saying it will give the court access to transportation-related documents.

"He made it clear he wants to see all the information, all the cards on the table," she said.

Reach John McDermott at 937-5572 or jmcdermott@postandcourier.com. Reach Katy Stech at 937-5549 or kstech@postandcourier.com.