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Plans aim at speeding cargo handling, reducing truck traffic, and cutting air pollution

SACRAMENTO – 05/02/08 – Three Northern California ports - Oakland, Sacramento, and Stockton - are finalizing plans to improve their ability to handle both container and break-bulk cargo and reduce the number of trucks moving on the highway network linking the San Francisco Bay Area and the distribution centers and markets located in the state's Central Valley. 

The California Transportation Commission has given the go-ahead to the deepening of the Sacramento Ship Channel with the commitment of $10 million from the Proposition 1B Trade Corridor Improvement Fund (TCIF) that will be matched by $10 million from the Port of Sacramento.

The remaining funds for the $80 million project will be secured from the US Army Corps of Engineers and other government sources.

When completed, the project will deepen the 43-mile-long channel between West Sacramento and the Solano County town of Collinsville in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from 30 to 35 feet.

Officials from both the Bay Area and Sacramento region embarking on interregional planning efforts hope that more robust ship traffic on the channel leading to the Port of Sacramento will make a major contribution to reducing the number of trucks - and the resulting diesel-fuel pollution - needed to move goods between the two areas.

“We’re very pleased that the CTC understood the value of this much-needed project. Deepening the channel will significantly improve the competitive position of the Port as we continue to expand its role in the Sacramento region’s economy,” said Mike McGowan, Chairman of the Sacramento-Yolo Port District Commission.

The $2 billion TCIF was created when California voters approved Proposition 1B, a $19.9 billion bond measure for statewide transportation projects, on the November 2006 ballot.

The decision to fund the deepening project follows from a report released last year by consultants PB Ports & Marine Inc. of Portland, Oregon, and BST Associates of Bothell, Washington, that conculded the Port of Sacramento “must deepen its channel five feet at a cost of well over $50 million to revive its shipping business.”

Deepening the existing channel by five feet, the report concluded, “will enable approximately 75 percent of the world’s shipping fleet to enter the Port fully loaded.”

Currently, it said, only 30% of the world’s ships can call at the port with full loads.

Because the deepened-channel will enable more goods – including cement, fertilizer, lumber, steel, wind energy equipment, project cargo, rice and large construction materials – to be moved into and from the Sacramento area by ship, at least 23,545 two-way truck trips will be removed annually from Interstate 80 between the Port and the Bay Area, with corresponding air quality and congestion benefits.

The project also will provide up to 6.4 million cubic yards of material for potential use on Delta flood levees.

The deepening project is scheduled to begin in 2010 with completion by 2013.In a related development, the Port of Oakland and the inland deep-water ports of Sacramento and Stockton are reportedly working on the feasibility of using a specially designed ferry that transports chassis-mounted containers which are loaded and unloading utilizing self-powered chassis trains.

The ferry, pushed by a state-of-the-art integral tug, can operate at existing channel depths at all three ports and utilizes a drop-gate design, similar to a landing craft that minimizes the required landside improvements and facilitates the ingress and egress of the chassis trains.

The use of “chassis trains” allows for pre-staging of the containers-on-chassis into full ferry “blocks” for quick loading and unloading of the ferry. It is projected that the ferry would be in port for approximately one hour to both unload inbound containers and to load outbound containers.

As conceived, one tug/ferry combination would service each of the routes of Oakland to West Sacramento and Oakland to Stockton. This service would transport both international and domestic containers.

Like the Sacramento Channel deepening project, the proposed ferry service would assists trucking firms in remaining productive by reducing the amount of time transiting congested intra-city corridors; reduce diesel air emissions and traffic volume on the region’s highways; and improve traffic safety by reducing the number trucks per day from the traffic corridors between the deep-water ports of Oakland, Sacramento, and Stockton.

In addition, the ferry would provide a transportation alternative for transporting people and supplies during natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes that might disrupt road and railroad transportation.

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