History
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| The L.A. Harbor, 1899 |
In 1542, Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo discovered the "Bay of Smokes". The south-facing San Pedro Bay was originally a shallow mudflat, too soft to support a wharf. Visiting ships had two choices: stay far out at anchor and have their goods and passengers ferried to shore; or beach themselves. That sticky process is described in Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr., who was a crew member on an 1834 voyage that visited San Pedro Bay. Phineas Banning greatly improved shipping when he dredged the channel to Wilmington in 1871 to a depth of 10 feet (3.0 m). The port handled 50,000 tons of shipping that year. Banning owned a stagecoach line with routes connecting San Pedro to Salt Lake City, Utah and to Yuma, Arizona, and in 1868 he built a railroad to connect San Pedro Bay to Los Angeles, the first in the area.
Port of Los Angeles, 1913
After Banning's death in 1885 his sons pursued their interests in promoting the port, which handled 500,000 tons of shipping in that year. The Southern Pacific Railroad and Collis P. Huntington wanted to create Port Los Angeles at Santa Monica, and built the Long Wharf there in 1893. However the Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis and U.S. Senator Stephen White pushed for federal support of the Port of Los Angeles at San Pedro Bay. The Free Harbor Fight was settled when San Pedro was endorsed in 1897 by a commission headed by Rear Admiral John C. Walker (who later went to become the chair of the Isthmian Canal Commission in 1904). With U.S government support breakwater construction began in 1899 and the area was annexed to Los Angeles in 1909. The Los Angeles Harbor Commission was founded in 1907.
In 1912 the Southern Pacific Railroad completed its first major wharf at the port. During the 1920s, the port passed San Francisco as the west coast's busiest seaport. In the early 1930s a massive expansion of the port was taken with the construction of a massive breakwater three miles out that was over 2 miles in length. In addition to the construction of this outer breakwater an inner breakwater was built off of Terminal Island with docks for sea going ships and smaller docks built at Long Beach. It was this improved harbor that hosted the sailing events for the 1932 Summer Olympics. During World War II the port was primarily used for shipbuilding, employing more than 90,000 people. In 1959, Matson Navigation Company's Hawaiian Merchant delivered 20 containers to the port, beginning the shift to containerization at the port. The opening of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in 1963 greatly improved access to Terminal Island and allowed to increased traffic and further expansion of the port. In 1985, the port handled one million containers in a year for the first time. In 2000, The Pier 400 Dredging and Landfill Program, the largest such project in America, was completed.
Port district
USGS Satellite picture of a portion of the Port of Los Angeles, including Pier 400, Reservation Point, and port facilities in San Pedro, March 29, 2004
The port district is an independent, self-supporting department of the government of the City of Los Angeles. The Port is under the control of a five-member Board of Harbor Commissioners appointed by the Mayor and approved by the City Council, and is administered by an executive director.
Shipping
The container volume was 7.8 million Twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) in calendar year 2010. The Port is the busiest port in the United States by container volume, the 16th busiest container port in the world and the 6th busiest internationally when combined with the neighboring Port of Long Beach. The top trading partners in 2010 were
China ($120.7 billion)
Japan ($35.3 billion)
Taiwan ($10.7 billion)
South Korea ($10.1 billion)
Thailand ($7.2 billion)
The most imported types of goods in calendar year 2010 were, in order: furniture; footwear; toys; automobile parts; and women's and infant apparel.
During the 2002 West Coast port labor lockout, the Port had a large backlog of ships waiting to be unloaded at any given time. Many analysts believe that the Port's traffic may have exceeded its physical capacity as well as the capacity of local freeway and railroad systems. The chronic congestion at the Port is beginning to cause ripple effects throughout the American economy and is disrupting Just In Time inventory practices at many companies.
The port is served by the Pacific Harbor Line (PHL) railroad. From the PHL the intermodal railroad cars go north to Los Angeles via the Alameda Corridor.
There are plans to deepen the port to 50 feet, which is about deep enough to accomodate the draft of the world's biggest container ships such as the PS-class Emma Mærsk and the future Maersk Triple E class.
World Cruise Center
China Shipping Alternative Marine Power (AMP) under the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Catalina Express high speed catamaran, and Diamond Princess docked at the World Cruise Center.
Located in the San Pedro District beneath the Vincent Thomas Bridge, The Port of Los Angeles hosts superb recreational transportation with the largest cruise ship terminal on the West Coast of the United States. The newly renovated World Cruise Center supports three passenger ship berths transporting over 1 million passengers annually. It is claimed to be "the nation's most secure cruise passenger complex". Its vast 2560 space long term parking lot is patrolled continuously by port security. Courtesy shuttles transport passengers with their luggage between the parking lot and the terminal complex on arrival and departure days. The World Cruise Center accommodates a wide variety of transportation, including Rental Car, Tour Bus, Limousine and Taxi services. The World Cruise Center is linked to attractions Ports O' Call and the Maritime Museum by a new pedestrian esplanade featuring public art and fountains as well as connections to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and other San Pedro attractions when using the Waterfront Red Car trolley/shuttle.
The Queen Mary 2 is the largest cruise ship ever to sail from Los Angeles.
Environment
That shipping volume comes with a cost: air pollution. Container ships burning low-quality bunker fuel idle dockside because most have no capability to connect to shore-generated electricity. Diesel-powered semi-trailer trucks and locomotives idle while waiting to be loaded and unloaded. Truck, ship, and rail pollution coming from the ports were the largest source of air pollution in Southern California in 2006.The local air quality regulatory agency did a study that found that air pollution from the port is responsible for 2,000 cases of cancer per million people (25 per million is the upper limit sought by regulators). The 47 tons of nitrogen oxides generated daily by port marine vessels nearly equals the amount emitted by the 350 largest factories and refineries in the region, and that number is expected to increase 70% by 2022.
A $2.8 million Port of Los Angeles Clean Air Program (POLACAP) initiative was implemented by the Board of Harbor Commissioners in October 2002 for terminal and ship operations programs targeted at reducing polluting emissions from vessels and cargo handling equipment.
To accelerate implementation of emission reductions through the utilization of new and cleaner-burning equipment, the Port has allocated more than $52 million in additional funding for the POLACAP through 2008.
The port installed the first Alternate Marine Power in 2004, and can provide up to 40 MW of grid power to two cruise ships simultaneously at both 6.6 kV and 11 kV, as well as three container terminals, reducing pollution from ship engines.
All about: Oakland, United States, Los Angele, Port of Long Beach
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