Editorial: AAPA Event To Focus On Efficiency, Security

If we’ve missed something while reading the advance notices for the April 24–26 seminar planned in Jacksonville, Fla., by the American Association of Port Authorities, we’d surely like to know about it.

The event is dubbed: 2007 Operations, Information Technology & Safety Conference. The seminar, AAPA says, “will feature insights from players throughout the supply chain, including those representing ocean, rail and motor carriers (emphasis ours), who will discuss operational productivity, velocity and efficiency of goods movement at seaports.” We failed to see anything in the announcement related to barge movements from these ports. We’re hoping we just missed it.

In recent years it has been emphasized that barges move about 15 percent of this nation’s gross domestic product (in 2006 valued at some $13.4 trillion) for about 2 percent of the total transportation cost. Recent figures put the value of cargo being moved by ports and waterways at $2 trillion. As one waterway industry leader put it: “As for the percentage moved by barge, it depends on whose numbers you are using.. [One Corps official] says barges move 18 percent, I think, and if you don’t count pipelines as a form of transportation…it is more like 22 percent.” Any way you look at it, the role of the barge and towing industry is not insignificant.

We are all aware that as of 2006, only 5 percent of the containers and cargo entering the United States are inspected (Dobbs, War on the Middle Class, 2006). And if we have been reading our maritime publications, we know that container-on-barge movements are increasing. In fact, federal officials have been telling us for some time that national freight traffic is expected to double in the next decade. The Journal of Commerce reports that there has been double-digit growth in container trades and that China is behind it. Finally, we know that U.S. cargo moves to and from tidewater by barge. Even though the percentage of that total may not seem much, the volume is considerable.

Still, one cannot deny that productivity, velocity, efficiency and security should be at the top of the list. The first three issues have always been important. It is good news, then, that the Journal of Commerce also reported that during 2006 “harbor truckers enjoyed a benign working environment. The congestion that plagued major container ports in recent years disappeared as terminal operators, shipping lines and trucking companies cooperated more closely and shared data on shipments.” (Remember several years ago when U.S. retailers were “pulling their hair out” while their imported goods, stowed aboard container ships, sat helplessly in California harbors?) The latter issue, port security, leaped to the fore when the acquisition of U.S. terminals and stevedoring operations by Dubai Ports World became big headlines in this country, the result being passage by Congress of the SAFE Port Act, which was signed into law last October.

We still wonder, however, if the portion of goods barged inland from our seaports is so insignificant on our nation’s transportation chessboard that it deserves no more recognition than a sacrificial pawn? Apparently Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard don’t think so. If they did, why would the towing industry even be bothered with the Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC)?

Costs related to security requirements will not be imposed only upon port operators but upon all transportation workers. Additional, but unrelated, costs will be soon forthcoming as transporters are expected to comply with new clean-air requirements recently announced by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Having said all that, the AAPA seminar should provide a good platform for sharing concerns about port operations. The event will focus on the integration and cooperation required today among those challenged with maintaining and improving freight-handling operations at public ports. The association, founded in 1912, represents 160 of the leading port authorities in the United States and has another 300 sustaining and associate members, firms and individuals with an interest in seaports of the Western Hemisphere…port authorities.

Still, are we to believe that among the 160 leading ports there is none involved in barge operations? When huge ships leave tidewater with U.S. agricultural exports, we venture to say that a sizeable chunk of the overall total was delivered from the heartland by barge. Again, percentagewise it may not seem such a large amount, but convert it to tons, and it looms large.

We know that many inland ports have successfully melded the positive attributes of rail, truck and barge to better serve their customers. We believe that it is happening also at the nation’s seaports as well. So when we conclude from advance publicity that the towing industry is not to be involved at Jacksonville, we have to hope we are wrong.

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