LA and Long Beach target ‘ugly risk’ of containers left near ports as supply crisis continues

With shipping delays increasing and cargo building up at Los Angeles County ports, local authorities are tightening up rules on, as part of an effort to reduce congestion from cargo ships anchored along the southern coast of California.

Beginning November 1, carriers will be billed $ 100 per container, with charges increasing by $ 100 per container per day, but charges will not be assessed until November 15.

The fees collected will be reinvested by the ports in programs to increase efficiency and alleviate congestion, according to the announcement.

“This is not about a passed on cost, but rather about ‘moving the cargo,'” Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, said Wednesday at a press conference. In an effort to alleviate the stalemate, Long Beach the staking of cargoes in ports.

The global supply chain crisis has increased the need for local ports to make room for bottleneck cargoes. “The terminals are running out of space. We need to make room in our terminals, around 530,000 container units are sitting on these waiting ships, ”Cordero added.

In response, the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach announced a few days ago that ocean carriers will be charged for each container that exceeds their visit to the port complex: nine days or more if moved by truck, and three days or more if moved. by rail.

Cordero said that “30 to 40% of the cargo at the sea terminals has been there for more than 9 days”.

“We are trying to protect our own”

Meanwhile, the lack of space for containers has fueled a major bottleneck at southern California ports. Empty containers are stacked in truck parks, outside warehouses – and some are even dumped on the side of the road.

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Truckers, however, insist that this is a function of the port crisis, rather than negligence on their part.

“They are on the streets because nobody is seeing them,” Carlos Rameriz, a truck driver, said in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

Drivers “don’t care. They drop him in the street. There’s a pile of empty containers on Washington Street because the [ports] have no place to put them and they get tickets, after tickets, I don’t know who pays them, ”Rameriz added.

Some of these empty containers sit on frames because there is no other space as described by Rameriz. The congestion also has truck trailers because the unloading of containers from ships has been .

It has become a vicious cycle as a flood of imports continues to flood besieged southern California ports ahead of the holidays. And with the overflow in ports, containers end up on residential streets.

One accident in particular was the cause of after a shipping container flattens a car after falling from a truck. No one was injured but it happened in Wilmington, near the Port of Los Angeles, where ocean traffic jams have a similar effect on the streets.

“It’s a very ugly danger,” Vivian Martinez, a Wilmington resident, told Yahoo Finance in an interview.

Residents living near ports have complained about container encroachment and how trucks are stranded on the streets at all hours, even before Long Beach relaxed its zoning rules.

“They won’t park here. We do not allow it. If they try to get through here, I go out with a trash can or our cars, [it makes] the trucker is going all the way back, ”Martinez said.

Residents like Martinez are fed up with this long-standing problem that has exploded since the pandemic. Some have erected barriers at both ends of the street, with signs reading ‘No Trucks’ – the latest chapter in a crisis that stems in part from unintended consequences.

“We are trying to protect our own,” Martinez added.

Authorities have responded to these concerns by cracking down on companies that stacked containers in violation of local zoning laws.

“Law enforcement has issued more than 400 citations for trucks illegally parked with containers,” LA City Council member Joe Buscaino told Yahoo Finance in a statement.

“My office is actively working with the Port of Los Angeles to identify viable parcels of port-owned land in industrial areas to store containers and conduct trucking operations away from neighboring residential areas,” added Buscaino.

Buscaino noted that it has found some success in identifying packages, and its next step is to identify an operator who can help organize the containers being processed in these new locations.

This follows Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order aimed at reducing the backlog. He asked government agencies to look for state-owned properties that could temporarily store goods entering ports.

Newsom has asked the state’s Department of General Services to review potential sites by Dec. 15, but it’s still unclear whether LA will follow Long Beach’s lead in relaxing the rules for stacking. containers.

Dani Romero is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @daniromerotv

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