By Stas Margaronis, AJOTThe Port of Stockton “ is on track” to begin a tug and barge service that will take up to 350 containers off Northern California roads from the port of Oakland to the ports of Stockton and West Sacramento and back on a weekly waterborne service beginning in 2012. In an interview with the AJOT, Richard Aschieris, Stockton’s port director said that in 2009 the three ports were awarded a $30 million Department of Transportation (DOT) grant to develop a marine highway service. The Port of Stockton’s share of the funding is  $13 million and will  not only relieve highway congestion, but:
  • Finance the purchase of two mobile harbor cranes
  • Finance development of a ten acre site at the port’s Rough and Ready terminal plus provide crane service at the port’s East Complex.
The Port included a container terminal use in its environmental impact plan “which was fortuitous, because we did not have to do one for this new service.” A ground-breaking ceremony for the new project  took place at the Port on Tuesday October 26th and included port officials from Oakland, Stockton and West Sacramento, members of Congress and DOT officials. Fuel Savings The selling point of the service to customers is that the tug and barge service is expected to result in substantial fuel savings compared to trucks and these fuel reductions will result in lower emissions. A tug barge uses about 25% of the fuel consumed by a truck taking a similar load over a similar distance, according to a University of Texas study. Air Quality Savings As a result, the three air quality agencies governing Oakland, West Sacramento and Stockton each provided $750,000 to help buy a barge that will be used to carry the containers. The expected air quality reductions from shifting containerized truckloads onto a waterborne tug/barge  are expected to be:
  • 2.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions  per year.
  • 13,000 tons of carbon monoxide per year.
Aschieris said the port is in the process of letting out bids for purchase of the cranes, the development of the ten acres container terminal at Rough and Ready as well as some demolition work. He said that “contractors have been very aggressive in their bids” and this could allow for the development of a larger than the 10 acres site originally planned for by the project. Tug and Barge Investment The ports will collaborate to buy an existing barge to carry the containers and will seek bids from tugboat operators to transport the barge. Aschieris said that the port’s $13 million will finance substantial employment in the Stockton area “where the unemployment rate is 21%” The port expects that construction of new facilities will create 276 jobs and that once the service is operational that it will create 63 permanent jobs generating $5.6 million of income per year. The Stockton area is home to many distribution centers that serve Northern California consumers so that while “we have no formal agreements from customers yet there has been a lot of enthusiastic interest which we expect to see turned into agreements” because of fuel reduction savings generated by the tug barge. On the Dock Rail Aschieris is particularly hopeful that the Rough and Ready terminal, originally developed as a depot during World War II, will find favor with container users “ because it already has two miles of on dock rail. You hear many ports claim they have on dock rail when they mean on terminal rail, but here we actually have the rail lines adjoining the pier.” This  was particularly helpful for the unloading of wind turbines from ships that allowed for direct ship to rail transfer “without needing a truck” The turbines were unloaded for wind turbine builders  such as Siemens and Vestas and the equipment went to California and Mid-West destinations, although this business has slowed with the downturn in the economy. Aschieris said that the port began