Haley vetoes Savannah River bill

   South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley vetoed a resolution Monday that would have suspended the authority of a South Carolina state agency that last year granted a key permit needed as part of the plans to deepen the Savannah River.
   The permit was approved by the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) board in November, even though the agency’s staff had originally rejected the idea.
   The permit is opposed by environmentalists, and is also controversial because it benefits the terminals in Savannah operated by the Georgia Ports Authority which is in strong competition with the South Carolina State Ports Authority’s facilities in Charleston.

Haley

   Haley said in her veto message that the joint resolution, which was unanimously approved by both South Carolina’s House and Senate, “amounts to unconstitutional legislative overreaching into an agency’s ruling” and “reflects a fundamental misundersanding about the administrative process.”
   At issue is a water quality permit that DHEC approved last year. That permit is also being challenged in court. In December, the Environmental Law Center claimed the 38-mile deepening project will deplete the Savannah River’s dissolved oxygen levels so much that untested areation machines would be needed for life support. It said the deepening would destroy habitat of the endangered shortnose sturgeon, and ruin hundreds of acres of freshwater marsh.
   Meanwhile, the McClatchy newspapers reported that Haley asked President Obama on Monday to find more money to deepen Charleston and other Atlantic ports so the state can accommodate larger ships expected in greater numbers after the Panama Canal is widened in 2014.
   “If we don’t get our ports actually deep enough to be able to accept those big cargo ships, we are going to have a wasted opportunity and watch the Caribbean be the ones to benefit.”
   Haley also called for faster approval of deepening projects by the Army Corps of Engineers and for use of money from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for deepening projects. — Chris Dupin