(The Associated Press circulated the following article on August 24.)
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The nation’s largest port complex is looking to nights and weekends to move cargo, hoping to ease trucking traffic and air pollution.
A coalition of marine terminal operators at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach developed the program, which is expected to begin in November, to pre-empt state lawmakers from forcing potentially costly changes at the ports.
To pay for operating the terminals for extended hours, cargo owners will be assessed fees projected to amount to more than $150 million a year for three years. The fees will be phased out after three years, when the volume of cargo at the port will have grown enough to offset the cost of the extended hours.
By opening the ports’ cargo facilities during off-peak hours, terminal operators say there will be fewer trucks on the area’s freeways during rush hour. With less congestion, trucks will spend less time idling and that should help reduce air pollution.
“The air we breathe will be cleaner as trucks spend less time on highways,” said Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat who represents the port district in the California Assembly.
A new company, PierPass Inc., will administer the program and collect the fees from cargo owners, who will be charged $20 for every 20-foot cargo container and $40 for 40-foot containers.
Those who opt to move their goods through the ports’ terminal gates during off-peak hours or through the Alameda Corridor — a 20-mile rail line built to streamline cargo traffic between the ports — will have the fee refunded.
Extended hours will initially be Saturdays while the program is phased in over six months. Every subsequent month, another extended shift will be added.
It remains to be seen whether a majority of cargo owners will make the necessary adjustments to their own operations, such as staffing warehouses and distribution centers during evenings and weekends, to switch to moving their cargo at off-peak times.
About 17 percent of the ports’ cargo now moves at off-peak hours. But that is mostly cargo controlled by the larger importers, who specifically order and pay for cargo operations to be conducted after hours.
The new initiative would eventually make such off-peak cargo operations the norm.
“In reality, the rest of the system will take at least a year to respond to the change,” said Jon Hemingway, chairman of the terminal operators group that developed the program.
Some large shippers, like Toyota and Target Corp., are supporting the program.
Target has been conducting its cargo operations during off-peak hours for some time, said Rick Gabrielson, the company’s senior manager for import operations. More than 30 percent of the company’s cargo operations already occur either at night or weekends.
Switching operations can be difficult, but Gabrielson urged shippers to follow suit.
The new program will require the hiring of around 500 additional port workers on top of the 3,000 the ports are hiring to deal with a logjam of cargo.
“Our first priority is to get the cargo we have through this port in our peak season,” Hemingway said. “A huge portion of the nation’s cargo goes through these ports and we can’t screw it up.”