RALEIGH, N.C. - There’s very little water on which to navigate a ship in western North Carolina, but the legislature thinks building an inland port amidst the mountains is an idea worth studying.

Lawmakers have appropriated $100,000 for a study in which researchers from Western Carolina University will determine if a port is feasible.

“It has nothing to do with water,” said Alan Thornburg, senior policy fellow at Western Carolina.

“It’s an inland intermodal facility for the transfer of goods.”

Another consideration is that the traditional seaports can’t handle the volume.

“Seaports are — this sounds really bad — swamped. We’re overwhelming the seaports in a lot of ways,” said professor Michael Smith of the College of Business.

In 1970, about a million containers a year moved to and from U.S. seaports, said Scott Hercik of the Appalachian Regional Commission. By 2000, that number had grown to about 20 million. By 2020, it should be 50 million.

The commission, which is looking at possibilities for an Appalachian network of inland ports, sees in them a potential economic boon. An area in northern Virginia surrounding an inland port in Front Royal, the first of its kind, has added more than 7,000 jobs since its creation in the 1980s, said Hercik, a commission adviser.

While a shipping hub could mean more traffic, Smith said, it could decrease congestion by using infrastructure more efficiently.

The study could be finished by the end of 2008. Researchers have won $250,000 in federal and state tax money to spend mainly on faculty and consultants’ pay, Thornburg said.

The project money in this year’s state budget earned a mention on a list of “pork” by the state chapter of the fiscally conservative group Americans for Prosperity.

Researchers will consider where any port could be best located. Participants wouldn’t name potential sites, but one, Dale Carroll of AdvantageWest, said it should take advantage of interstate highways and the Norfolk Southern and CSX railroad lines.

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