Thread: Planned Baja Port Colonet not a threat to LA/Long Beach port

http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinions/ci_12020590

Planned Mexico port not a threat


By Tom Elias
Posted: 03/28/2009 06:52:18 PM PDT


The doomsayers contend a new superport Mexico plans to build on the coast of Baja California about 180 miles south of San Diego means the end of commercial success for California and the elimination of thousands of jobs.

"Watch it and weep," said Steve Frank, political consultant and former head of the conservative California Republican Assembly, who notes the enterprise depends on Mexican trucks having access to America under of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Never mind both the fact that President Barack Obama has already cut back severely the number of Mexican trucks allowed to work in this country and the fact that the recession is delaying work on the port itself.

The real questions are if this port, when it's eventually built, has to be a disaster for California? Might it actually improve life in this state?

Here are a few maritime statistics to consider: About 30 million shipping containers crossed the Pacific Ocean last year, headed for West Coast ports. More than half (15.7 million) were unloaded at the congested, neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Another 8 million or so landed in other California ports, from San Diego and Port Hueneme to Oakland and Eureka.

Hauling off those containers created truck traffic that in 2007 contributed almost 20 percent of the human-spawned smog in the Los Angeles basin, not to mention innumerable traffic jams.

Under the state's greenhouse gas law, AB 32,


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a lot of that pollution will have to be cut in the next 10 to 12 years. The deadline falls not far from the putative opening date for the Mexican port.
Meanwhile, both the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports now spawn about as much rail and road traffic as likely will ever be practical, as both are built out to near capacity. The same for Oakland.

So maybe the time is right for another port that could relieve some of the pressure. For even though cross-Pacific trade is down a bit this year, every forecast says the 24million containers now reaching here will increase by at least 50 percent over the next 10 years.

This suggests California just might need the port Mexico proposes to build at Punta Colonet, now a bucolic village of 2,500. That port, if completed as scheduled in about 2018, would handle no more than 2 million containers in its first phase and might eventually be expanded to deal with as many as 10million, depending on how many ships choose to unload there. Neither figure poses a serious threat to California trade.

But the new harbor could take the pressure for expansion off California ports, where it would still be more economical for America-

bound cargoes to unload. Yes, there will be some added costs at this state's ports as they are compelled to clean up both ship-caused pollution and truck exhausts.

But any cargo unloaded at Punta Colonet - and even Mexican President Felipe Calderon says it would aim mostly to serve American needs - would have to be trucked north or taken north on rail cars, then link with American highways and railroads.

Costs for that would likely far exceed any pollution cleanup expenses imposed on the existing harbors at Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland.

So once ship emissions have been cleaned, there will be no incentive other than practical need for ships to dock in Mexico, when transport of their containers to other points is much more convenient, cheaper and faster from the California ports.

This means the reality here is very different from the doomsday claims often made about the Mexican port. Once built, it would be more likely to handle overflow from the already super-crowded Los Angeles-Long Beach complex than to replace it. It would probably be no more a threat to the existing big seaports than Port Hueneme, the Ventura County port that now takes pressure off its bigger brethren by receiving and exporting cars, strawberries, pineapples and a few other commodities.

Far from a threat, the Mexican port would help ease traffic, cut smog and reduce illegal immigration by providing steady jobs within Mexico. Traffic at California ports has not been cut by the advent of a huge new harbor at Prince Rupert, British Columbia. Why should it suffer from a new colleague in Mexico?

Interestingly, the same people who say they fear the planned Mexican port said nothing against Prince Rupert. Might that be because one would be run by Hispanics, while Anglos are in charge of the other?

Thomas D. Elias is a syndicated columnist who covers California issues (e-mail: tdelias@aol.com).

The doomsayers contend a new superport Mexico plans to build on the coast of Baja California about 180 miles south of San Diego means the end of commercial success for California and the elimination of thousands of jobs.

"Watch it and weep," said Steve Frank, political consultant and former head of the conservative California Republican Assembly, who notes the enterprise depends on Mexican trucks having access to America under of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Never mind both the fact that President Barack Obama has already cut back severely the number of Mexican trucks allowed to work in this country and the fact that the recession is delaying work on the port itself.

Re-read this a few times... Obama needs to get stricter and this Steve Frank is part of what PARTY?

It is actually containers not trucks and containers can come in through Guaymas and Lazaro Cardenas already.

I read that container traffic to the Port of Los Angeles is down about 30%. We're not buying as much consumer goods from China.

LA/Long Beach serves more than just the China trade.

I really don't need any products shipped over here in containers. Who needs those containers is the retailer (like WalMart) to be able to sell faulty uninspected goods at a cheaper price. There are photos of thousands of cars shipped here from Asia that are sitting in the ports because, without jobs in America, no one can any longer afford the nifty new SUV.
We need more inspection of the crap that comes into this country. I really don't care if Mexico builds a port, but let's see how successful that is when they expect us to buy everything that gets shipped here when we have no jobs and not enough inspectors to look at everything because of budget constraints.
Slowly but surely, Americans are saying "wait, enough is enough." Many of us have come to a reality that the money won't stretch as far as it once did, and who really needs the trinkets, the poison-painted toys, etc. when it means another factory being sent overseas.

DON'T SHOP WAL-MART ALIPACERS

There is a recession now but it is not permanent. I think both Colonet and Guerrero Negro a chemical manufacturing town further down the Baja are going to be the size of Mazatlan within fifteen years.

I predict the 10 Billion in the world will cause a greater recession. And there is going to be a shortage of FOOD AND WATER. Now who wants to buy from a foreign country. Not this American

"Red Line"