The Port of Los Angeles hosted its annual State of the Port address on Jan. 14. In previous years, the port charged exorbitant fees to hear the address. Because of the pandemic, this year, it was virtual and free.
Gene Seroka, executive director of the port, largely focused on the impact COVID-19 had on the port during 2020. In particular, the port’s moving of containers, which is its primary economic driver, was erratic.
“By May of 2020, our volume had plunged nearly 19%,” Seroka said. “In the second half of the year, American consumer demand created a pandemic-induced buying that our economy has never seen before.”
The amount of containers that the port moved in the second half of 2020 increased by almost 50%. The port handled almost twice as much cargo the week before Christmas of 2020 than it did during that same period in 2019.
In total, the port moved 9.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units during 2020, which is slightly below 2019. However, 2020 was the port’s fourth highest ranking year in terms of cargo volume.
Seroka praised the ILWU’s handling of the swings in cargo volume. By August, the port was down nearly 234,000 labor shifts. But when the pendulum swung in the other direction, the ILWU members picked up the slack.
While the moving of cargo volume broke several records over the last few months, most of the port’s other areas of business declined, including cruises, waterfront businesses and vehicle import volumes.
Seroka said the biggest reduction in business was in exports.
“Rarely have we seen a time when only 1 in 4 containers returning to Asia was loaded with cargo,” Seroka said.
Seroka argued that the port serves the economy and said that the port will accelerate economic recovery. He said the port will do this by getting more money from the government.
“Over the last decade, federal investment in West Coast ports has trailed other coasts by a margin of 10 to one,” Seroka said. “That needs to change. Working with the ILWU, PMA [Pacific Maritime Association] and other West Coast ports, we will marshal a coalition to fight for our fair share of funding.”
Seroka did not specify why the port needs extra funding when it continues to break records in terms of cargo volume. He said the port will also help the economy by aligning policies, programs and investment on exports.
“Everyone benefits when we make it easier for American businesses to access foreign markets, create economic opportunity and reduce their carbon footprint,” Seroka said.
He said that the port’s capacity to handle large amounts of cargo quickly was key to its competitiveness. Operational inefficiency hurts the port, and the executive director said that everyone involved needed to take steps to move faster, including stakeholders in the supply chain community and policy makers.
During the presentation, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti briefly spoke, commending Seroka’s work as chief logistics officer for Logistics Victory Los Angeles, or LOVE LA, which was started during the pandemic to stockpile personal protective equipment, or PPE, for workers and hospitals.
“To date, LOVE LA has provided more than 4.6 million units of PPE to three dozen LA area hospitals, and 150 skilled nursing facilities,” Garcetti said.
Seroka said that at the beginning of the pandemic, the PMA and ILWU quickly came up with protocols for sanitizing terminal and telecommunications equipment. However, since liquid sanitizer was scarce, they had to rely on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which supplied 1,400 gallons of industrial bleach. Construction and maintenance workers diluted the bleach to standards set by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and delivered them to the marine terminals in the port.
Seroka also spoke of new digital tools to track port data, such as the Port Optimizer data portal, as well as the Control Tower. These tools help with efficiency, but the port has a more sinister problem related to data — the weaponization of port data.
“Since the pandemic began, cyber intrusion attempts on our IT system have nearly doubled to 45 million per month,” Seroka said. “Our cyber security safeguards protect us against those intrusions, but other maritime institutions have suffered costly and debilitating attacks.”
To fight these attacks, the port has a cyber resilient center run by International Business Machines Corp., IBM.
Seroka did not mention that the port charged Carlos Saldana, ILWU casual, with 20 counts of cyber harassment — even though he did nothing of the sort. The only thing Saldana did was attend a protest in person with signs that mocked the harbor commissioners who approved the automation of Pier 400. The case was quietly dismissed in November 2020, after Saldana spent more than $10,000 defending himself.
Seroka also spoke of the port’s clean air action plan, and the advancements the port made on it in 2020. The port’s goals include zero emissions terminal equipment by 2030, and a zero-emissions drayage truck fleet by 2035.
To that end, the port is currently involved in 16 demonstration projects and is testing 134 units of advanced equipment, including 78 zero-emissions trucks.
“After more than a decade of proofs of concept, we’re starting to have real discussions with truck manufacturers about what it will take to make a zero-emissions equipment market right here in Los Angeles,” Seroka said.
However, such a change will not be cheap. Transitioning to zero-emissions trucks will cost more than $10 billion, which does not include the cost of installing infrastructure to support those trucks, such as charging stations.
The port doesn’t know how to actually meet its own deadline in terms of zero emissions, so it sent out a request for information to private companies in October. The port wants help with how to accelerate the development of zero-emissions technology and other organizations had until Jan. 14 to respond. With any luck, other entities will be able to help the port do what critics say it should already be doing.