Dredging projects key to GPA’s plans for handling post-Panamax ships Dovetailing with the Panama Canal expansion is the Georgia Port Authority’s (GPA) Savannah Harbor Expansion Project (SHEP). Significant to SHEP was Congressional authorization and President Obama’s signing of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 into law on June 10. “This affectively completes all approvals and means construction can now begin on the long awaited SHEP” explains GPA Executive Director Curtis Foltz. SHEP will deepen the inner harbor to 47 feet Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) and the entrance channel to 49 feet MLLW, which will make it better to facilitate post Panamax vessels and be competitive with other East Coast ports. In addition, the Savannah River Channel will be extended by 7 miles. Three bend wideners and two meeting areas will also be constructed along with the enlarging of the Kings Island Turning Basin at the Garden City Terminal. The Army Corps of Engineers is now in the process of awarding the first construction components of the project. Over the next 30 to 60 days, GPA will award a $100 million contract for the initial environmental mitigation required for the project as well as the first dredging contract that will address the outer harbor. “This is the first segment to be dredged,” Foltz says. Dredging is expected to be completed in 2018, which means GPA will trail the Panama Canal expansion by about one and one-half years. The deeper harbor will fully complement the landside infrastructure improvements that are currently under way to increase the Port of Savannah’s capacity and improve services throughout GPA’s maritime logistics network, including that at Savannah’s 1,200-acre Garden City Terminal. “Currently, we are reconfigurating our container stacking areas to make them denser to stack more containers, and making other improvements to improve the velocity of turn times,” Foltz says. This includes improving roadways to access those stacks, implementing state-of-the-art technology, as well introducing a much higher utilization of all-electric and environmentally friendly container handling machinery. Last year, GPA also announced a $80+ billion purchase of four super post Panamax cranes and 20 rubber tire gantry cranes for yard support. The GPA Board of Directors also approved a $10+ million project to increase truck gate capacity as well as storage area for the handling of both empty and latent containers. With the consolidation of shipping lines and fewer, yet bigger ships, scale is important. “It’s not uncommon within this facility to do over 20,000 moves in a day,” Foltz says. “We have modeled and designed the facility to double the current capacity within this footprint.” Garden City Terminal will have direct highway access from the port to Interstates 95 and 16. This will complement the on-terminal access Class I railroads CSX and Norfolk Southern (NS) already have inside the Port of Savannah. “Rarely will you find that proximity anywhere in the United States,” Foltz stated. “We are creating a highway system we call freight corridor to bring the last mile projects directly into our Garden City Terminal.” GPA is also expanding the parking area to the tune of 10 acres at Ocean Terminal to handle its growing roll-on roll-off (ro-ro) business in both automobiles and heavy machinery. The Port of Brunswick is also seeing improvements in three areas. First, two areas are being expanded by 40 acres to handle greater volumes of automobile parking and processing. “This business has been part of the huge success story of the GPA,” Foltz says. “We are now the No. 2 auto processing port in the United States.” Second, GPA is in the initial phase of engineering, designing and permitting a fourth berth at Colonel’s Island Terminal. Third, GPA is involved in a multi-million dollar plan with partner Logistec U.S.A., at GPA’s Marine Ports Terminal (also known as the East River Terminal) to add warehouse capacity, dry bulk grain handling conveyer systems and to overall improve the loading and unloading access for rail. The terminal also handles GPA’s expanding biofuels business.