The Port of Long Beach is planning a celebration for next month to celebrate, after 10 years, the completion of what’s been touted as the world’s most advanced and “greenest” container terminal.
The $1.5 billion Middle Harbor project, which has opened in phases but was formally completed in last month with final work on wharf and backland areas, combined two aging, 1950s-era shipping terminals into one. It brought upgraded wharfs, greater water access, more storage areas, an expanded on-dock rail yard to reduce truck trips and the ability to accommodate the newest and largest ships.
It also has full automation via the project’s Long Beach Container Terminal, where remotely-run cranes glide back and forth and tower over nearby structures as they interface with a computer-controlled stacking system.
Terminal automation isn’t without high financial costs — or controversy. Automation has long been a source of major tension between both the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, and the local longshore unions. The longshore workforce is currently preparing to retrain and adapt to the new systems while keeping a wary eye on potential job losses that could result from the changing operations.
But automation is becoming increasingly common. Two Port of L.A. terminals, for example, now at least partially automated — APM Terminals on Pier 400 and TraPac.
And in May, Pier T terminal operators in the Port of Long Beach called labor union leaders to announce their plans to pursue automation as well.
Both the Ports of Long Beach and L.A. are pushing the accelerator to meet an overall zero-emissions deadline in 2035. A deadline for terminal equipment arrives earlier, in 2030. The ports have been the largest stationary polluters in the region but are making progress under the joint Clean Air Action Plan adopted in 2006 and updated in 2010 and 2017.
The automated electric equipment is pollution free.
Construction on the Middle Harbor redevelopment project began in 2011 and its completion is a major milestone, port officials said at the Long Beach harbor commission meeting last week.
A public ceremony will be held in August, though officials have not yet determined an exact date.
The completion of the Middle Harbor project comes less than a year after the Port of Long Beach celebrated in October the opening of the successor to the now-defunct Gerald Desmond Bridge. That span, which will be named the Long Beach International Gateway Bridge — pending state legislative approval — is wider and taller than its predecessor, meaning it can handle more trucks driving under it and larger cargo ships sailing under it.
Together, Middle Harbor and the new bridge represent twin leaps forward in the race to adapt to a rapidly growing and changing shipping industry.
Both the L.A. and Long Beach ports — the busiest and second busiest in the nation, respectively — have also reported record-breaking cargo numbers for a year, largely due to changes brought about in consumer habits during the pandemic.
