Port of L.A. Accepts The Challenges Of Exploding Goods Movement In Region

Since the Port of L.A. is such an integral part of this region's economy, why don't you lay out for our readers what's on the very top of the Harbor Department's agenda this year?

Our most pressing concern is to make sure we're handling our volumes well. We're seeing record amounts of cargo coming in this year, so we want to make sure that there's good coordination among the railroads, terminal operators, and shipping companies.

We opened the China Shipping terminal in May (we had the official opening in June). And for the first time ever, we have a ship using our Alternative Marine Power (AMP) Program, which means that once the ships come into port, they plug into the DWP grid and produce essentially zero emissions. We've had three calls already and they have all been very successful. One of my big initiatives this year is to sign up some of our other shipping companies to the AMP Program.

We also want to take a look at our infrastructure issues and make sure that our planning is on track for the next five or ten years. This year, one of the things I'm really excited about is starting on our public infrastructure projects. We recently broke ground on the first portion of the eight-mile waterfront promenade, Bridge to Breakwater. We think that this project adds some real balance here, both with our neighborhoods and with the industrial side of the harbor. Everybody seems to find good harmony in that.

Assemblyman Lowenthal from Long Beach has been carrying three bills to try to spur the area's two ports, which have seen exploding growth in goods movement, into alignment with the environmental and traffic concerns of their residential neighbors. Can you speak to the assemblyman's bills, and share the Port's positions on them?

The bill that we're focusing most closely on now is AB 2042, which seeks to set a baseline that would put the Port in a no growth scenario. We think that this bill certainly shows some promise in terms of the baseline. We've tried to work with the assemblyman, and have testified before the Senate subcommittee that we would support this with some changes that would allow Port growth, without a capping of our activities, if we can meet our environmental goals.

The growth of goods movement traffic through the Port is exploding over the next decade. How sensitive and difficult is it for a general manager of the Port of LA to balance the concerns of the surrounding community with your mission?

Balance is something that we've been working on for the last three years or so. The mayor made it plain that we should grow without negative effects on traffic and air quality degradation. Our snapshot right now shows that we can do that through a combination of means that we already have on the ground and some technologies that we know are arriving by 2010.

Is a 24/7 port operation practical?

We looked at a 24-hour port operation in a working group before Assemblyman Lowenthal came up with his bill, and his people sat in on these sessions as well. This was a multilateral group of industry people, port people, and regulators. Councilwoman Janice Hahn from Los Angeles and Councilman Frank Colonna from Long Beach headed the effort. The first conclusion we came to is that we're probably not a 24-hour port complex to begin with; as we are, the volumes really aren't there to justify the expense of 24-hour operations. But we are probably a two-shift port, which is one of the things that we've been working on hard. The industry has actually taken the initiative to put together a fund that would incentivize cargo to move on the second shift-from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. This shows enormous potential to use the existing infrastructure better and more efficiently.

The price of real estate and the lack of infrastructure investment, transportation or otherwise, around the Port of L.A. is clearly driving some importers to look at the east coast and alternative entry ports for the U.S. How substantial is the competition from alternative ports in the states, and how does the Port Authority and your board look at such competition?

You've touched on two issues. One of them is size of the infrastructure and growth constraints. The other issue is competition. Frankly, I don't think we've begun to tap our full potential with the properties we have here. Having visited the ports of Europe and Asia, I know that our next round of growth is vertical rather than horizontal. Our issues are being addressed in a systemic way. The Port of L.A. and the Port of Long Beach are both looking at infrastructure improvements and additions. And second shifting-moving more cargo on the infrastructure when there aren't people commuting to and from work-shows enormous potential.

Competition always exists and competition makes us better. The fact is that our business is growing – we're up almost 10-percent on the year. Cargo will continue to move to the ports that best handle it, and we don't think anybody's better at doing that than the Ports of San Pedro Bay.

That's a pretty bold assertion re the LA competitive advantage. Elaborate.

It sounds bold, but we're active on so many fronts in order to make it possible. We participate in planning groups for infrastructure; we've undertaken millions of dollars worth of clean-up of the air; we continue to look at better ways of being good neighbors to the communities around us; we continue to look at traffic improvements so that commuters don't bear the brunt of our growth. Here in the Port of Los Angeles, we provide excellent customer service to our clients to make sure that they know we want them and that they want to stay here. We work hand in hand with them to try and ensure that neither one of us is overcome by the impacts of growth or regulation.

Let's turn to homeland security and the port. Around the country as well as here, there's a heightened sense that we're vulnerable to terrorism at our ports. What's being done to respond to such concerns?

We became engaged in securing the port immediately following 9-11. We had disaster recovery working groups in the harbor that were pretty familiar with each other, and we quickly turned that into a homeland security working group with the leading federal agencies. We've aggressively partnered with overseas ports to push back the borders and put technology in some of the major trans-shipment ports of the world. We have consultants and homeland security folks working to pre-inspect cargo in Hong Kong and Singapore. We'll be rolling out the first of the so-called "TWIC" cards-transportation workers identity cards-on a programmatic basis in the next couple of months. Both of the ports will have 100% radiation portal detection capability on all of their gates starting this year. It's hard to tell you all of the measures that are going on simply because we've engaged so quickly.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge was here recently and expressed his satisfaction with what had been done in LA and Long Beach. We're seen as leaders around the country in terms of measures that we've taken, both internally and with our clients. The federal authorities have said that they believe these two ports are probably the safest in the U.S. because we jumped on this so quickly.

When MIR interviewed you last year and asked about the reauthorization of TEA-21, you favorably commented on the suggestion of Transportation Secretary Mineta for a SEA-21 and spoke about alternatives ways out of th port to mitigate present congestion. Could you elaborate on such initiatives?

Anybody who closely reads or follows the way transportation reauthorization has gone is probably a little less hopeful than we might have been a year ago. Our first initiatives might have fallen by the wayside simply because the bill is going to be a lot smaller than it would have been otherwise. That doesn't mean that we've given up on these issues. We know that the port complex needs to improve the infrastructure and we continue to work on that. Through our Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA) group, we completed the final bridge on PCH. We've tasked ACTA with looking at major improvements on the SR-47, which would actually provide a third major way out of the ports to the major infrastructure, north off of terminal island, which would relieve both the 710 and the 110 freeways. We've looked at intelligent transportation systems-some of which will be internally funded and others will be funded with the help of the federal government. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position right now to predict how much help we can expect from the new highway bill, but we're ever hopeful that something will come our way.

Larry, this newsletter has always been very supportive of general managers and the professional operation of L.A.'s proprietary departments. You seem to have fallen uncomfortably between the politics of Mayor Hahn and Councilwoman Hahn in terms of your tenure. How's the uncertainty of support affecting your ability to operate as L.A.'s general manager of the Harbor Department?

The focus really shouldn't be on me, but on what a great department we have here and what we do, both for the region and the nation. The great story here is the port and the work we are doing. As long as we're providing value here and moving forward on all the fronts we've described, this is a pretty good place and I relish my job here.