By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOT Just like the ebb and flow of the tides on the Delaware River, its ports never remain static. For one, 188 acres of the former Philadelphia Navy Yard in south Philly, located adjacent to the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal (PAMT), were recently deeded to the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA) by the Delaware River Stevedores. PRPA will use this new land to construct, in conjunction with the Commonwealth and private sector investors, a new state-of-the-art container terminal to be called the Southport Marine Terminal. Southport will be the first major expansion of the Port of Philadelphia in over 50 years. It has the potential to double the amount of container traffic at PRPA “We’re working through some permitting and land ownership issues right now,” said Bob Blackburn, PRPA senior deputy executive director, to AJOT in a recent telephone interview. “These need to be worked out before we can begin the process of building.” Blackburn estimates it will take three years before construction on the terminal can begin. That’s because of the amount of demolition work that first needs to be done. “There a lot of old naval housing in the Philadelphia Shipyard that has to be taken down,” he said. “It’s got a 30 to 36-month timetable to get to a point where construction can begin.” Then, he estimates, it be another two to three years to before the first berth is up and running. When completed, the terminal should encompass 120 acres. Blackburn anticipates Southport will be able to handle from 750,000 to 1 million TEUs when fully functional in five years. In other big news, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett released $15 million in September to allow the Delaware River Main Channel Deepening Project to continue. That project, which began in March 2010, is critical as it will deepen the Delaware River from 40 to 45 feet, thereby permitting larger, more modern vessels hauling bigger container loads to travel to and from the Port of Philadelphia. “We will be shortly commencing the second phase of that project, looking for completion sometime in 2014,” Blackburn said. Not only does the channel deepening project dovetail with plans for Southport, its timing is good given that also in 2014 the Panama Canal expansion will be complete. The widened Canal will make it possible for a wider variety of vessels to call on the Port of Philadelphia. Cargo Upticks at Philadelphia Positive cargo figures provide immediate good news for the Delaware River port region. “We are enjoying our second year as the primarily U.S. East Coast port for Glovis, which is the transportation division for Hyundai and Kia,” Blackburn exclaimed. The automobile business had virtually vanished from Philadelphia’s working waterfront for many years, but returned to the Port in late 2010 with the arrival of Hyundai and Kia, and their logistics partner Glovis. Today the cars are familiar sights at PAMT and Pier 98 Auto Processing Facility across the street. Blackburn reported that 130,000 units were offloaded the first year and that PRPA anticipates doing 150,000 units the second year. Keeping units lower in year one were the disasters in Japan that set back their own car manufacturing. “The Korean cars were in greater demand around the world,” Blackburn said. He revealed that PRPA is also actively marketing other auto manufacturers. PRPA is also enjoying resurgence in forest products, which began in 2010. “We should end up with a 20-25 percent increase in volumes when final statistics are completed for 2011,” Blackburn said. Contributing to this was the return Finnish paper manufacturer M-real in 2010 after a hiatus of several years, plus a general stabilization in the paper market overall. “We are not back to where we want to be,” Blackburn stated. “I don’t know if we will ever see years when we bring in 800,000 tons of forest products a year again. But we should be back to about 450,000 -500,000 tons for the year, and are encouraged by