The Army Corps of Engineers will present its findings on a proposed reconfiguration of the federal breakwater off Long Beach to the Los Angeles-Long Beach Harbor Safety Committee at 10 a.m., Wednesday. The Army Corps L.A. District office told the community last week that it planned to recommend approval of a study to determine the feasibility of the reconfiguration - backed by surfers and environmentalists who claim the breakwater blocks the waves and inhibits circulation of the water. The recommendation would have to be approved by the Army Corps office in San Francisco. The study would take three to four years to complete and cost up to $8 million with the city paying half. The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association and Jacobsen Pilot Service sent a letter to the Army Corps earlier this month expressing their concerns about the proposed reconfiguration and urging a meeting with industry.
Port of Seattle boss Tay Yoshitani has had a tough week. First, he had to apologize after he emailed port employees a patriotic speech and video praising American servicemen. Yoshitani, a graduate of West Point, said he got both thanks and protests from port employees, some of whom objected to the orator, Fox News commentator Oliver North, who was a key player in the Iran-Contra affair back in the 80s, and to the sponsor of the video - the National Rifle Association. Then on Thursday, the Seattle Times broke a story saying that although Yoshitani lives in Bellevue, he had voted regularly in Seattle elections using his work address at the port. Yoshitani said when he first arrived in Seattle and was living in a hotel, he had registered at the port address. When he finally bought his Bellevue home in 2007, he neglected to reregister.
Folks at the Port of Long Beach are talking about putting on a "wing-ding" to celebrate a new Hyundai service from north and central Asia. The first ship - the Hyundai Commodore - expected to arrive at the California United Terminals next Sunday. The Pacific Southwest service employs five 4,000-TEU vessels and is expected to bring an additional 370,000 TEUs through the port each year. That translates to about $14 million in port revenue, plus an unknown number of jobs. The celebration was proposed by Commissioner Mario Cordero to show the port's appreciation for the business. Rotation for the new service will be Kaohsiung, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Yantian, Busan, Long Beach, Oakland, Busan, and Hong Kong.
Good news at the Port of Los Angeles as well, with the New World Alliance - Hyundai, MOL and APL - launching a weekly Pacific Southwest 5 service connecting the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Oakland to Asia. The five 4,700-TEU vessels will call at Shanghai, Busan, L.A., Oakland, Yokohama, then back to Busan, and Shanghai. First ship due in L.A. is the APL Liberty on June 7.
Meanwhile, the Port of Oakland is getting a taste of all the new business. Evergreen and China Shipping are launching a new joint service that will connect the Port of Oakland and the Port of Los Angeles with northern and central China. The China/South US West Coast Service 2 will use five 4,000-TEU vessels in a rotation that goes from Qingdao to Shanghai, Ningbo, Oakland, Los Angeles, and back to Qingdao. First call on the West Coast will be the Ever Develop, scheduled to arrive in Oakland on June 13.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week finally gave its blessing to the long-delayed plan to ship containerized garbage by barge and truck from Hawaii to the Roosevelt Landfill, north of the Columbia River near Lake Umatilla. The garbage, which was shrink-wrapped in plastic before being loaded into containers, has been piling up in Hawaii since last September awaiting transport. The plan calls for that and future garbage to be shipped through the Port of Longview, although the Ag Department approval also includes the Port of Rainier and the Port of Portland. Hawaiian Waste Shipments hopes to start sending the garbage to the mainland in June. The garbage containers are expected to add six to eight shifts a month of longshore work at the port.
California State Sen. Alan Lowenthal has introduced a Senate Joint Resolution calling on Congress to establish a National Freight Policy. SJR 33 calls for Congress to adopt the policy as part of the next federal transportation bill and direct the Department of Transportation to implement it. The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association - often on the other side of issues from Lowenthal - praised the measure.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel Atlantis called at the Port of Los Angeles on Friday morning to take on personnel and equipment and get some publicity for a land, sea, and sky air-quality study that will take place this summer in California. The California Air Resources Board and NOOA are engaged in a massive $20 million effort, dubbed CalNex 2010 that makes use of four aircraft, the research ship, two ground air-monitoring super sites, and scores of researchers.
Port of Long Beach Harbor Commissioner Mike Walter has been named one of the "most inspirational" professors at Cal State Long Beach. Walter, who has served on the port board since 2005, was given his most recent kudo by the 2010 senior class. His current positions at the university are executive assistant to the president and professor of economics and business administration.
The recent contract approved by ILWU miners with Rio Tinto Minerals - parent company to U.S. Borax - has come under fire from outspoken union firebrand Jack Heyman of Local 10 in San Francisco. Writing on SocialistWorker.org, Heyman said the union longshore workforce should have refused to load containerized product produced by replacement workers during the company's lockout of its ILWU workforce. That would have prevented what Heyman characterized as the "ILWU's PATCO," referring to the 1981 strike by air traffic controllers that ended when the striking workers were fired by President Ronald Reagan.
-- The Cunningham Report
