Super-sizing Hudson's Ports
$6 billion blueprint for harbor revitalization
The Bayonne and Jersey City waterfronts could receive millions of dollars to make way for super-sized cargo ships under a proposed plan announced yesterday by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The year-long study for the harbor's economic growth includes a series of proposals that could restore Hudson County's preeminence as the center of the region's shipping operations.
The report, entitled "Strategic Investment for a 21st Century Port," outlines a $6 billion, four-decade blueprint for the regional ports, including Jersey City's Port Jersey with Bayonne's Military Ocean Terminal and expanding operations at both.
The Port Authority study is a response to the worldwide increase in use of giant container-cargo ships - and the potential loss of what is now a $20 billion-a-year regional port economy to other states with deeper shipping channels that can already handle the new generation of vessels.
Besides enabling New York-New Jersey to compete with rival ports, the Port Authority hopes to take advantage of a growing use of the Atlantic Ocean by Far East vessels that are using the Suez Canal to reach East Coast markets.
The Port Authority study is only the first step toward what could be a hard-to-reach consensus between New York and New Jersey on the harbor's future course.
Chris Ward, chief of the Port Authority's Department of Planning and External Affairs, warned yesterday that the presentation was not meant to endorse any particular plan but rather just announce findings. Ward said the plan will be submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers, which will release in December its plan for dredging and revitalizing the harbor.
The Port Jersey terminals would be among the first in the harbor to have channels and berths 50 feet deep - 10 feet deeper than currently available almost anywhere else in the port.
The deeper-draft megaships that require such depths are expected to comprise almost a quarter of the world's cargo fleet by 2010.
Jimmy Chen, president and chief executive of Jersey City's Global Marine Terminal & Container Services, said he has no doubts the bi-state port, with its huge consumer base, will be a magnet for the new ships. Global has already place a $25 million order for four new container cranes to handle them.
"There's no reason to wait," Chen said. "One day (the port of) New York will have these big ships , and what we have here will be a deepwater channel soon.
Ward said the 50-foot depths can be achieved quicker and cheaper at the Bayonne and Jersey City waterfronts than other areas in the region because of the area's soft bottom.
"It would require some blasting of rock in the Kill Van Kull (between Staten Island and Bayonne) to get to the Elizabeth and Newark ports," he said.
The study calls for an initial $650 million for the Hudson County marine terminal investments, including dredging channels up to 50 feet, by 2005.
The Port Authority's master plan also calls for spending $1.5 billion on the Hudson County waterfront to link the 100-acre Global Marine Terminal in Jersey City with about 200 acres at the MOT in Bayonne, which the US Army is to vacate in 2001.
The expansion in Hudson County would involve filling a portion of the Port Jersey Channel separating the two facilities. The plan envisions the complex growing even larger by relocating the export and import business of the 143-acre Auto Marine Terminal, which adjoins Global.
Linking these Hudson marine sites would make for a 500-acre facility that could expand further by using the nearby Greenville railroad yard. That would provide enough space to accomodate six or eight ships just a half-mile off the main channel in Upper New York Bay.
The 2,200-acre Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal across the Turnpike from Newark International Airport, is presently the engine that drives the harbor, according to Ward. It reached its present size in 1958, two years after the first ships began carrying containers.
Channels there would be dredged to 45 feet to accomodate the slightly smaller vessels that make up 60 percent of today's trade.
The plan to deepen and expand New Jersey's ports is expected to meet strong opposition from across the bay.
New York City, whose mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, has accused the Port Authority of favoring New Jersey in the past, is preparing its own plan. That plan would focus on reinvigorating the old Brooklyn Navy Yards to accomodate the new generation of ships.
"Let's be candid here," Ward admitted. "There are concerns of where the bulk of the port improvements will be - Brooklyn or New Jersey."
But the Port Authority, Ward said, has to marry water and land transportation and requires more land for the plan.
New Jersey, with its rail and interstate highway access, and greater available land to stack cargo containers and build warehouses, may have the edge over New York.
Still, the Port Authority plan does include $500 million for a new marine terminal in Brooklyn.
Newhouse News Service contributed to this report.