CA: Other Ports Prep for Cargo (LA & LB Ports backlogged)

Los Angeles Times ^ | January 3, 2005 | Ronald D. White, Times Staff Writer

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Along the West Coast, expansion programs are in the pipeline to win shipping business from Southern California.

A building boom is underway along the Western seaboard of North America as ports strive to handle the growing flood of trade from China — and possibly lure away some of the shipping that clogged the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach last year.

Billions of dollars have been committed for dredging and construction projects in Alaska, Canada and up and down the West Coast. Expansion programs are on the drawing boards on the Baja peninsula and at the Panama Canal. Backwater ports in the Bay Area and British Columbia are dreaming of better days.

The activity was inspired in part by the spectacle of cargo-laden ships waiting for days to unload at L.A. and Long Beach — the second time in three years that the nation's busiest port complex has suffered ruinous backlogs. Since July, more than 100 ships have been diverted to Oakland; Manzanillo, Mexico; and other ports to avoid the Southern California traffic jam, and some of the lost business could be permanent as shipping lines look for less congested alternatives.

[A CA Guy]

The Long Shoreman's Union last I heard gives full time pay and only works many members half day.

Couldn't they at least expect a full day's work?

And you can educate most to do the jobs there in two weeks. Outside of blackmail, how do we justify $200,000 in pay a year?

[NorCalRepub]

Until the 1980's or so, the Oakland Port was the largest container port in the world. Now it is Long Beach I think. I grew up in the Oakland hills and also lived in Long Beach for awhile and know that these ports are HUGE and are backlogged alot of the time......it is quite an operation

[truth_seeker]

Los Angeles and Long Beach ports are side by side.

On this combined basis, it is the largest port in the US.