Harbor short on cargo space
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
With the economy booming, major shipping companies say they are running out of cargo space at Honolulu Harbor and want the state to expedite plans to convert the Kapalama Military Reserve off Sand Island Road into a cargo terminal.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
State officials say they're trying to speed up the Kapalama project to get it done by 2011, two years earlier than originally planned.
Matson, which recently spent $31 million to improve its container stacking, is warning that cargo room at Honolulu Harbor is growing tight.
The state's two largest domestic cargo carriers say they are taking steps to address the cargo issue on their own.
Horizon Lines, the state's second-largest domestic cargo carrier, operates about 38.5 acres at the harbor — and is busting at the seams.
In the spring, it negotiated with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to use an additional 10 acres across Sand Island Road on a temporary basis, according to Brian Taylor, the company's vice president and general manager for its Hawai'i and Guam division.
"We're obviously handling a substantially greater volume of cargo through this facility with a very limited amount of acreage," Taylor said. Under the state's own formula, he said, Horizon should already be using 60 acres of land.
The situation is not much better for Matson Navigation Co., the state's largest ocean transportation firm, which uses about 100 acres at the harbor.
Matson changed the way it stacks its cargo containers in 2001, a $31 million alteration that allowed the company to increase storage capacity by 10 percent, according to Gary North, Matson's senior vice president for the Pacific.
"In the short-term, through the next five years, I think we're all right," North said.
"The concern is we can't afford to give up the existing containers facilities. Our concern is if the state allows these other, non-maritime things to creep onto the piers and we lose Pier 1, then I think in the short term we're going to have a problem."
Taylor and North are among those in the maritime industry who believe the ultimate solution lies with development of a new cargo facility at the former Kapalama Military Reserve, a 70-acre site under control of the state that would increase terminal capacity around the harbor by 50 percent.
"That's the ultimate solution," said Kraig Kennedy, who heads the maritime committee for the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai'i that has been working on the issue with industry and state leaders. "There isn't anyplace else."
"You've only got so much property on this island," said Kennedy, who also is executive vice president of McCabe, Hamilton & Renny Co. Ltd., a stevedoring company. "And if you take a look at how much of that property can be appropriately used as a deep-water port, you really reduce yourself out to an even lesser amount of available. So Ho-nolulu Harbor is it. And the last piece of big property available to expand the terminal would be Kapalama."
Sause Brothers, another cargo carrier, has moved its operations to Kalaeloa and the state Department of Transportation is trying to get others to follow. But maritime industry representatives, as well as DOT officials, say that harbor is only 35 feet deep and soil would need to be excavated to a depth of 42 feet to accommodate larger cargo craft.
The Harbors Division of the Department of Transportation is conducting a hazardous materials assessment of the site.
State transportation director Rod Haraga said he expects the terminal's development to cost no less than $200 million. Remediation costs will be high, and development there will require firming up the property's foundation to accommodate heavy loads.
Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.
