California ports still struggling

By Ronald D. White
Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — This could be another record cargo year at Southern California's twin ports, where ambitious plans to avoid a repeat of 2004's floating traffic jam are encountering rough waters.

Cargo ships off Long Beach, Calif., waited for entry into the port last year. At the Long Beach port, January container traffic was up 35 percent compared with a year earlier. Gina Ferazzi • Los Angeles Times

This year, international trade has set such a brisk pace that shippers are wondering whether predictions for 12 to 14 percent growth in 2005 might be too low. At Long Beach's port, for example, January container traffic was up 35 percent compared with the same month last year.

That has raised the specter of another shipping nightmare before Christmas as officials strain to implement efforts to accommodate the ever-swelling volume.

"It's something I lose sleep over every night," Jon Hemingway, chief executive of terminal operator SSA Marine, told a gathering of maritime executives in Long Beach on Tuesday.

SSA Marine is one of the primary movers behind a shift to nearly round-the-clock operations at the ports' 13 terminals — a plan that has been delayed twice and is now set to begin in June.

Maritime executives said the move was extremely complicated, involving close cooperation by truckers, terminal operators, waterfront workers and distribution warehouses to succeed. Currently, terminal gates are open from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays and are closed on weekends.

"We don't know if there will be enough truck drivers. We don't know how many distribution centers will participate," said Hemingway, appearing at the two-day Trans-Pacific Maritime Conference, where the main focus was proposing solutions for the region's shipping problems.

At the height of the congestion problem last year, more than 90 ships were lined up at the two ports, swamping a dockworker labor force that hadn't grown to meet the load. Railroads were so taxed that they refused to take on additional freight, and retailers lost customers when their products couldn't be delivered on time. Dozens of ships were diverted to other ports and scores of truckers left the business, forced to wait so long for their cargo that they usually managed only one job a day.

Executives of Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads said they had taken steps to expand capacity so that the problems don't repeat.

Executives at both railroads said they had spent billions of dollars to hire engineers and other workers, add locomotives and lay new tracks. But, they cautioned, preventing renewed congestion would be difficult.

"We will get through it," said Steve Branscum, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe vice president. "Will it be a lot different from last year? No. Will we get through it without problems? No. Is it all our fault? No."

To prevent unexpected worker shortages that plagued docks last year, shipping lines are adjusting cargo forecasts on a monthly basis to keep on top of labor needs, said Jim McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents West Coast shipping lines.

But some players have been left out of the planning process, said Bill Butler, senior vice president for client solutions and marketing for Weber Distribution of Santa Fe Springs.

Butler said his company, which operates a trucking service and owns 13 warehouses, had not been included in discussions about implementing extended hours at terminals. Weber's warehouses would need to be staffed at night and on weekends to accept cargo from the ports.

"At the end of the day, if we are not part of the loop, it's going to bog down all over again," Butler said. "We are part of the supply chain, too."