Posted on November 4, 2021
New England families have heard a lot in the past few weeks about supply chains and bottlenecks. They may even have begun to see empty shelves at some retailers more reminiscent of the old Soviet bloc than modern America.
The White House describes the infrastructure components of its Build Back Better agenda as a “once-in-a-generation investment” designed to “reduce congestion” and help build more “modern, resilient and sustainable ports” as a part of a plan that “will support U.S. competitiveness by removing bottlenecks.”
President Biden has outlined steps he was taking to ensure toys and treats made their way through ports and on to store shelves in time for the holidays. He even appointed a special logistics czar to uncork the bottleneck.
Well, the Massachusetts Port Authority got a jump on building better a few years ago with a plan to modernize and expand the Conley Container Terminal in South Boston (the one you see when eating a hot dog on Castle Island). Massport invested $850 million to dredge Boston Harbor to make way for bigger ships that previously may have only stopped in New York. And they installed three massive new cranes so dockworkers can more efficiently offload containers.
Build it and they will come. Right?
Wrong.
During the biggest global logistical log jam in history, shipping companies are making obscene profits and charging customers storage fees while holding onto their products. All the while the ports in Los Angeles and New York are bursting at the seams, cold storage is tapped out, and in many places there aren’t enough trucks to move the limited inventory that is trickling out of the ports.
Massport should be celebrated for its foresight. They started in 2017 what the Biden administration now envisions. So, why isn’t Boston the shining example of the one port whose anticipation should be heralded as a much-needed solution? Is it perhaps because some parts of the supply chain don’t want a solution?
The fact is, something called the Ocean Alliance, a coalition of shipping companies, has decided not to send its vessels to Boston from mid-November through January. That’s right. The port is dredged, the cranes are ready, the doors are open for business, and truckers can move in and out quickly. This part of the logistics supply chain is up and running. But the shippers inexplicably won’t ship here.
The Boston port can serve 14 million consumers within just a few hours of offloading vessels. More than 2,500 businesses throughout New England use the Conley Container Terminal. While hundreds of ships are at anchor awaiting action at other ports, looking like some modern Dunkirk, there is currently no waiting to berth at Conley. What’s more, a union trucker in New York or Los Angeles may wait up to eight hours to get into those ports. But those same drivers would turn around at Conley in about 32 minutes.
Companies need vital raw materials to stay in business. They are withering under shipping costs and delays. A container that used to cost $2,500 to send from Asia today costs $25,000. And now consumers are beginning to feel the pinch of these higher costs.
Alaska’s famous Bridge to Nowhere was a planned $398 million project to replace a ferry between two islands that would service 50 residents. Now, mostly foreign-owned shipping companies like CMA CGM/APL, Cosco Shipping and Evergreen Line are refusing to use Boston’s Conley Terminal for the next three months. We cannot let them turn Massport’s $850 million investment into the Dredge to Nowhere.
It’s time for the White House and the president’s logistics czar to have the hard conversation with shipping lines about why they are not using a port that is deeply dredged, equipped with the latest technology and has a ready supply of truckers prepared to move product onto store shelves. Massport did its job in building a better system — now we need answers on why shipping lines are not using it.
