By a vote of 301,761 “no” votes to 126,535 "yes" votes, San Diego voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition B, “The Port of San Diego Marine Freight Preservation and Bayfront Redevelopment Initiative.” ILWU Local 29 was among many in a coalition of business, labor, environmental and other groups which joined the San Diego Port Tenants Association, port commissioners and mayors of five regional cities in opposing the measure. Proposition B would have constructed hotels, restaurants, retail businesses and a sports stadium on a platform to be built above the 10th Avenue Marine Terminal.

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will begin collecting container fees that are part of their Clean Truck Program, starting November 17. The fee was to have originally to have been implemented on October 1.

In related news, a new liquefied natural gas production plant, built in the Mojave Desert 75 miles east of Los Angeles will go into service in March. The plant will provide a fueling station in the middle of the LA-Long Beach port complex--at Anaheim and "I" Streets--with LNG for the ports' clean trucks, reducing the port's contribution to global warming and to the burden of air pollution in the Southland.

The Port of Long Beach initiated its first alternative marine power (AMP), aka "cold-ironing," service on Tuesday, November 11, to a "K" Line vessel, the Long Beach Bridge. The service, which provides ships with operating electricity while they are at dock at the International Transportation Service Inc. terminal at Pier G instead of necessitating that they run their diesel-burning auxiliary engines, is projected to cost $8M. The port is planning additional shorepower projects.

Studies by the Southern California Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) show that up to half of docked ships toxic diesel emissions come from their auxiliary engines. The ILWU's Saving Lives campaign has been encouraging shipping companies like "K" Line and Maersk to switch to AMP and to burn lower sulfur fuels on the high seas as well as near the coast.

Diesel particulates, in a number of comprehensive epidemiological studies, have been shown to contribute to asthma, emphysema and even premature heart attacks, and burden state economies like California's with millions of dollars in medical and insurance costs. 

The Ports of Seattle and Tacoma have bad news for longshore workers at Locals 19 and 23 looking to pick up more work on the Puget Sound docks: container volumes at both ports continue to slide downward, with Tacoma not expecting a recovery until 2010.

In its seventh consecutive declining month, October box volumes dropped 14 percent--to 152,486 TEUs--at the Port of Seattle compared to the same time last year. Export boxes were especially hard hit last  month, falling off 34.4 percent compared to October 2007.

The Port of Tacoma has not been hit quite as hard as other West Coast ports by the recession, but a new study by port staff predicts that cargo volumes will decline in 2008 and 2009, followed by a slight upward positive trend beginning in 2010.

The study forecasts that, by 2013, cargo volumes will still be only 1.85 million TEUs, or 10 percent below the port’s peak year of 2.06 million TEUs handled in 2006. That's a huge difference from the 51.6 percent increase the port experienced from 2001 and 2006, with subsequent growth in the ranks at Local 23.

Overall, annual volumes in Tacoma are off 6.5 percent compared to Sept. 2007; -11.2 percent in Seattle; -10.5 percent in Long Beach; -4.8 percent in Los Angeles; and -4 percent at the Port of Oakland.

The Port of Los Angeles is considering paying tenants' $10 for every TEU brought through the port as a "short-term incentive program." Port staff estimate that the incentive could result in a net gain of $9.5M at a time when the global and local economies are faltering.

In related news, the Port of Long Beach announced that its $35-per-TEU plan for the Clean Trucks Program will not commence as scheduled on Nov. 1.  The port plans on using RFID readers and tags on containers to collect the fee.

As a global recession continues and markets keep dropping, Singapore-owned American Presidents Line is reducing its trans-Pacific capacity by 20 percent.  An APL spokesman called it a "quick and decisive action to adjust to this reduced demand..."

Drewry Supply Chain Advisors states in a whitepaper released on October 22, that the future of West Coast ports "is one of almost universally progressive weakness" and that while the recent downturn in West Coast port volumes may appear to be related to the slumping global economy, "the changes [for West Coast ports] are structural and long-term."   

Sorry for all the unrelenting bad news, but the National Retail Federation forecasts that the West Coast port slump in imports that has been ongoing this year will continue for at least another six months, through February or even longer. As many longshoreman can testify, the peak season is not so "peak" this year and the NRF's numbers reflect that: August traffic is down 5.9 percent from August 2007; and they project that September and October numbers will be 9.2 percent and 6.9 percent off compared to the same time last year.

As the financial crisis has gone global in the past few weeks, one of the more reliable sources of work on the West Coast docks--exports--has begun to decline. The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Oct. 10 that exports in August were $3.4B less than in August.

Shipping lines like OOCL plan to scale back their trans-Pacific volume by approximately 15 percent this year, and economists predict that conditions could remain "bleak" in 2009.

The Port of Vancouver (Washington) plans to halve its capital spending in 2009, from $127.5M in 2008 to $63.1M in 2009.  The port cites uncertainty over the future of national and world economies as the reason for the axe.

The budget cut will not stop the port's purchase of an Austrian-made Liebherr LHM 500S heavy-lift mobile crane which is expected to be in place and operational at the port by the end of the first quarter of 2009. The crane is compatible with biodiesel, which conforms with a port policy requirement. 

In a hopeful sign of where the US economy can grow in these difficult times, ILWU Local 4 was able to bring aboard 26 new full-time workers by using an identical heavy-lift crane to load power-generating wind turbines.