Friday, March 13, 2015

LB Port Extends Temporary Chassis Depot

By Mark Edward Nero

A temporary storage container facility that opened at the Port of Long Beach in December 2014 to help deal with an ongoing congestion problem, won’t close at the end of March as originally planned. Instead, it will stay open at least several more months, according to the port.

The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners this week unanimously approved an extra six months of operation for the temporary container storage facility on the port’s undeveloped Pier S terminal.

The action temporarily extends the life of the existing 30-acre storage depot and also allows for the storage of loaded cargo containers and chassis in addition to the empty containers already permitted there.

Pasha Stevedoring & Terminals will continue to operate the storage depot, and the port says it will monitor traffic for any issues.

The temporary facility, which was approved during a period of high congestion at the port, is designed to help put back into circulation more chassis, the wheeled trailer-frames that trucks use to haul cargo containers. Because many terminals are congested and have had little room to accept empty cargo containers, more space was set aside to temporarily store those empties.

During its two-and-a-half months in operation, the empty container facility has freed up chassis for truckers to reuse to pick up new loads on the busy docks and speed up delivery.

Although congestion has eased in the past two weeks, the port says terminals are still in need of additional space as they try to eliminate a backlog of cargo that built up over the past several months.
Companies and individuals interested in using the depot must first contact depot operator Pasha Stevedoring at (310) 233-2005 or LBECD@psterminals.com.