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Life Preserver for LA’s Sinking Ports? |
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Voices
By James Preston Allen
From my back porch, on any given night, I can hear whether or not the cranes at the Port of LA are working. The ambient background noise is kind of like the sounds you’d hear in a casino with the slot machines being cranked–only the stakes are much higher and the gambling is based upon the speculations of the global free market.
The odds haven’t been looking so good lately. In fact, the revenues for both of our ports, LA and Long Beach, have been off since 2008, only posting a slight increase lately. I wonder if the containers aren’t the actual international currency being used like poker chips in a Las Vegas casino.
Being in business is always a gamble, whether you are a large multi-national corporation or a small mom-and-pop on Main Street, or a government-owned port. But it’s the large complexes of industry, like the ports, that have the largest impact, facilitating billions of dollars in trade and an accompanying estimate of 200,000 to 300,000 related jobs.
With the decline of Southern California’s dominance in the aerospace industry, the film and trade industries have become the dominant components, ranked respectively, of our domestic economy. But as the Hollywood fantasy machine soars, as it often does in hard times, the import business declines.
During a recent interview with POLA Director Geraldine Knatz, I learned she slipped off an icy curb in Copenhagen while attending the Global Warming Summit with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. I discovered that she has been globetrotting for at least the last half year to boost the flow of commerce into the Port.
She has traveled to the World Shipping Summit in China, to meetings with the Brazilian ports, then on to Germany, France Belgium and Denmark (before the GWS) with various trips around the U.S., not necessarily in this order.
Her commitment to bringing trade back to this port is not questioned, as is her commitment to touting the “Green Tech” initiatives that she promoted in Copenhagen in December. But will this be enough on both the business side and the environmental side to turn the tides of fortune here?
While some criticize POLA for its green mitigation measures either as going too far or not going far enough, what must be remembered is how far they have come over the last 30 years, and that the investments in green technology and the environmental mitigations are a down payment on a more sustainable future––not only for the environment and our communities but for the very port itself.
They have passed the point of no return to the industrial pollution model of the commons that has plagued us over the last century. This down payment on cleaning up the Port is also a job creator in ways they have yet to totally recognize.
However,” incremental change” seems to be the password for POLA. Watching the change take place is like watching a glacier melt. But it is moving on the Waterfront Promenade, the Wilmington Waterfront and on the TraPac terminal expansion.
Knatz says that she is still committed to the “downtown first” waterfront development promoted by both Councilwoman Hahn and the San Pedro Chamber, but the final design and the money have yet to be approved.
What seems to be lacking from the entire infrastructure design is any kind of business plan that gives a raison d’etre for what is being built. Even the 22nd Street Marina phase II project that replaces two of the small boat marinas only has cement foundation pads for some unknown future business leases.
Earlier last year though, Director Knatz did announce that she was researching a proposal to fund a marine science institute at the foot of 22nd Street, which would be the beginning of a plan that would coincide nicely with the Port’s green tech commitments.
She is still committed to this, but has spent far more time hunting for new trade than on building partnerships for this plan.
The marine science institute would be a life changing investment for both the Port and the surrounding community, as we have seen lately that the dependency on either tourism or global trade are not consistently the best bets. Investing in both higher education and green tech research and design in an area like the Port of LA seems like sure thing. One that should be started now so that the next time the global free market chokes at the gaming table we all aren’t standing around screaming, “craps”!
(James Preston Allen is the publisher of Random Lengths News www.randomlengthsnews.com ) -cw
CityWatch
Vol 8 Issue 3
Pub: Jan 12, 2010
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