Posted on July 28, 2021
The Georgia Ports Authority shattered records in 2020, with COVID-related consumer spending driving a 20% increase in operations at the Savannah Port.
“If you look at the Georgia Ports Authority over the last 15 years, our average [annual] growth rate was 6.2%,” said CEO Griff Lynch. “So clearly, there’s an anomaly here that’s driving additional growth.”
The ports moved 5.3 million twenty-foot equivalent containers (a port’s unit of measurement) last year, shattering 2019’s record of 4.4 million units, according to a GPA press release.
The rise in demand has caused a lag in efficiency, according to Lynch. Typically, the GPA aims to have a truck in and out of the ports, dropping off and picking up loads, in under an hour. With the increased volume, those times to inched up past an hour, rising three to five minutes over 2019’s times.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot but that means there’s more trucks that are here longer than an hour,” Lynch said. “And there’s some even longer than that. So, it’s something we’re continually focused on.”
Expansion plans to cost hundreds of millions
Expansion plans are already underway to bring truckload times down and increase capacity at the Garden City and Ocean Terminals. The GPA will pursue a $525 million state-issued bond to fund capital improvements to address the volume growth, including expanding the Garden City terminal and constructing the new Mason Mega Rail.
A $205 million expansion was approved earlier this year, aimed at increasing the port’s capacity by 20%, according to a February report from the Savannah Morning News. Joel Wooten, chairman of the board, said the GPA has had to move planned expansion projects up several years to meet the unprecedented demand.
“The goal of the Georgia Ports Authority for years has been to operate at about 80% of capacity. This year, with the huge increase in traffic and demand, it has pushed us in a good way,” Wooten said. The expansions, funded by the bond, will help bring capacity back down to 80%, Wooten said.
Georgia Ports Authority announces 145-acre expansion
Expansion plans include:
- A recently acquired property in Garden City, to the west of the Mason Mega Rail, will add space for up to 1 million container units. The terminal will add truck lanes and has an estimated completion data of 2023.
- The $220 million Mason Mega Rail Line will be completed at the end of this year. The railroad will add nine new tracks and connect the port to several major cities across the U.S., including Atlanta, St. Louis, and Chicago, and will help reduce truck mileage, which is a strain on infrastructure and the environment.
- The Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP) is nearly done. When dredging is finished at the end of this year, the river will be up to 54-feet deep at high tide.
- A recently announced inland port in northeast Georgia will be an electric facility that feeds cargo onto rail lines, reducing truck dependence.
Plans to deepen the harbor are one part of the port’s accommodation issues. The Talmadge Bridge connecting Savannah to South Carolina is not high enough for the new generation of large container ships to pass under. Lynch said the GPA is working with the Georgia Dept. of Transportation on solutions, and will narrow the list to four options (which could include moving the bridge or raising it) by year’s end.
“We’re nowhere near deciding on what to do. And that doesn’t mean we’re definitely going to do something or the state’s going to do something, it just means we’re trying to work on developing plans,” Lynch said.
The GPA reported about $400 million in capital expansion projects last year, Lynch said. And with the growth of the area and consumer spending not showing signs of slowing down, future expansion plans will be routinely discussed by the GPA and its board, he added.
Workers bear the brunt of busy ports
The ports hired more than 100 people in 2020 and are looking to fill more openings as demand creates more work for employees.
“The percentage of growth of 20% has caused the Georgia Ports Authority to get into a situation where our employees had to work really, really hard to keep up with it,” Lynch said. “We’re hiring as fast as we possibly can to get their hours down and make sure that they are not bearing the brunt of all this, because we want to make sure they have a good work-life balance right now. It’s been challenging.”
The GPA employs about 1,500 workers, and hundreds more work for the International Longshoreman’s Union. The port had 17 openings as of July 26, according to its website.
A nationwide labor shortage has impacted several industries, including tourism and transportation.
“There’s a shortage of truck drivers, there’s the shortage of warehouse workers. And so that’s contributing to the kind of slowdown and velocity of cargo moving through the system,” Lynch said.
