It's been mentioned here for a while now about JAXPORT needing a Plan B, due to it being years behind its peers in planning and implementation for the post panamax. It was said, that Savannah's plans would be delayed because of federal funding and opposition from South Carolina. Here's an update:
QuoteLaHood Pushes Savannah Port Project
President Obama's top transportation official is throwing his weight behind Georgia's effort to get more than $400 million federal dollars to deepen Savannah's harbor.
US Transportation Secretary Ray Hood says, he'll call a meeting on the project, which is waiting on Congressional funds.
LaHood made the promise Tuesday on his first visit to Savannah, touring the port with Governor Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
The Secretary says, he can't write the check, but can move the project on politically.
He says, he'll summon officials, like those of the US Army Corps of Engineers and Georgia's Congressional delegation.
As to why Savannah's project merits funding over similar ones nationwide, LaHood says, Deal and Reed reached out.
"What I'm saying is that these guys called me, they came to see me, they talked to me about this port," LaHood says.
full article: http://www.gpb.org/news/2011/11/15/lahood-pushes-savannah-port-project
Btw, South Carolina's opposition to Savannah's expansion seems to be waning....
QuotePort of Savannah project gets victory
COLUMBIA, S.C. â€" Georgia's port ambitions cleared a huge environmental hurdle Thursday when an S.C. agency ruled that the deepening of the Savannah River â€" a potentially crucial economic development project for Atlanta â€" can move forward.
Georgia’s victory didn’t come cheaply: at least $60 million will be added to the estimated $650 million deepening cost to satisfy South Carolina’s latest environmental demands.
And, even before the deal was done, environmentalists and key S.C. legislators vowed to continue the 12-year battle to dredge the river and harbor, possibly by unsheathing legal and administrative weapons. Curtis Foltz, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), is ready for any additional challenges.
“This is a big step forward regardless of whatever bumps arise in the future,†said Foltz after the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) board’s unanimous vote. “It’s great to see the states work together. There’s no doubt the region needs all the port capacity it can get. We all wanted to move this forward and not fight each other.â€
full article: http://www.ajc.com/business/port-of-savannah-project-1222363.html
QuoteLaHood Pushes Savannah Port Project
"What I'm saying is that these guys called me, they came to see me, they talked to me about this port," LaHood says.
Are we to assume then that nobody from JAXPORT called upon the Secretary? That seems unlikely.
So - what is Plan B?
My personal assumption is they may see investing in Savannah as a higher priority than investing in JAXPORT. Probably because they are a decade ahead of us in terms of planning and have the full support of Atlanta and the State of Georgia behind their efforts. I don't know if Jax has a Plan B. However, I think some effort should be put into developing one.
JaxPort has had many conversations with LaHood....and he has always expressed support
That said, I think Rep. Lake Ray has come around...in an article in this week's Business Journal, he says the Savannah investments "might create a market for smaller ships in Jacksonville".....exactly!
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/print-edition/2011/11/25/support-for-savannah-doesnt-rattle.html
There is almost 1 million square feet of vacant new warehouse space on New Berlin Rd near the JEA plant just waiting for cargo. I'm sure the owners would like to see some activity soon.
You guys should have been in Avondale for the Christmas Street show, you could have had a beer with Paul Anderson of JAXPORT who was looking to chat. I had a nice conversation with him. Mile Point is the most important thing right now. Have to get that fixed.
Anyone see that the Port of Miami is running into environmental issues with dredging? They have far less to do than the 1.1 billion in Jax, so if they are running into the marine huggers down there, it does not look good for the Jaxport plans here to blast bedrock off the bottom. Littlepage will be out there in his Kayak flagging them down every day!
which is partially why we should give up on dredging that deep...I say let's get to 45' and call it a day....let the really big ships go to Savannah or Miami....and then we take the business they displace!
Dredging for the port is the same thing as beach re-nourishment. Somebody is messing with mother nature and some hugger is going to find fault.
What kinds of effects will dredging have on the area? Just curious.
^^^Well even over the course of my short lifetime, the river has become more and more salty. When I was really young and we would go out skiing or tubing, the river was nearly 100% fresh, but I specifically remember one summer around 2002 when the water tasted salty all of a sudden, and there was a jelly fish problem in the river which originated in the ocean. It has been "salty" ever since, and tarpon, dolphin, shark, and game fish are perpetually downriver even as far as the Buckman Bridge. You didn't used to be able to catch Spanish Mackerel at the Florida Yacht Club, but depending on the season you can practically catch anything off of their docks now.
Of course there is nothing wrong, per se, of having a brackish river because it is definitely still fresh water past the Shands. Now "fresh" is relative and I mean only "without salt", because we do have GP down there trying to dump a lot of crap. :(
And I must point out, going back to the recent Savannah article on MetroJax where I mentioned the "special relationship" between Atl and Savannah, which caused a huge controversy when some people, claiming their expert GA experience, said that there was no relationship between the two cities - it looks like this article partially justifies my argument from an economic side :) As I said then and this article states, Savannah's port is more about Atlanta than Savannah!
Also, I recently reported in another port related thread about an economic report generated by research from my company. Without re-hashing the specifics, the main takeaway was that between 2000 and now, there has been a changeup in transporting Asian goods to the US east of the Mississippi. Before 2000, all Asian goods came through West Coast ports, mainly Long Beach. Now about 90+% of Asian goods meant for cities east of the Mississippi already come through East Coast ports, including Savannah. What that means is that this $400M and any other expensive dredging project is going for that remaining small portion of Asian goods not already being shipped directly to our side. Any other increase in all water transport of Asian goods to the Eastern half of the US will need to be organic, leaving opportunity for any ports to capture that growth. Of course, the ships will be larger, so dredged ports will capture both organic growth (should it occur) and that remaining few percent, so I guess my point is still technically moot.
Not being a credentialed scientist give me the opportunity to spout off and introduce an opinion not backed up with facts.
My take on the salt water intrusion is that the overall sea level has and will continue rising and the influx of fresh water from the upstream recharge areas has diminished sufficiently to reduce the flow necessary to counteract the movement of the ocean tides. You could blast a hundred foot hole in the river so the ships could get to the docks and the existence of that hole would have no bearing on how much salt water gets how far up stream. So there.
It is not worth destroying the river forever to generate an unknown number of jobs. Most containers that come into Jax are not here long and I don't see us building thousands of new warehouses. Leave the river alone, fix mile point and play the hand delt us to expand our commodity market and become a central location for aggregate materials. The Keystone project is a perfect use of our port.
Quote from: mtraininjax on December 08, 2011, 05:48:23 PM
It is not worth destroying the river forever to generate an unknown number of jobs. Most containers that come into Jax are not here long and I don't see us building thousands of new warehouses. Leave the river alone, fix mile point and play the hand delt us to expand our commodity market and become a central location for aggregate materials. The Keystone project is a perfect use of our port.
^^ Was exactly what I was wondering when I posed the question in the above post.
I am all for creating jobs, but not at the expense of ruining the river... Assuming that deepening the Channel would do that.
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2011/12/14/us-army-corps-review-panel.html