Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal is a major component of the Port of New York and New Jersey. Located on the Newark Bay it serves as the principal container ship facility for goods entering and leaving New York-Newark metropolitan area, and the northeastern quadrant of North America. It consists of two components – Port Newark and the Elizabeth Marine Terminal (sometimes called "Port Newark" and "Port Elizabeth" respectively) – which exist side-by-side and are run conjointly by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The facility is located within the boundaries of the two cities of Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey, just east of the New Jersey Turnpike and Newark Liberty International Airport.
Contents |
The Port is the twenty-second busiest in the world today, but was number one as recently as 1985.[1] Amongst the records it retains is being the port with the largest volume of imports from Germany of all US ports, with over 2.6 million tonnes in 2006, over 20% of the total volume of imports from Germany.[2]
Since 1998, the Port has seen a 65 percent increase in traffic volume. In 2003, the Port moved over $100 billion in goods. Plans are underway for billions of dollars in improvements - larger cranes, bigger railyard facilities, deeper channels, and expanded wharves. New longshoremen are being hired as well.
It is the largest container port in the eastern United States and the third largest in the country. Container goods typically arrive on container ships through the Narrows and the Kill Van Kull before entering Newark Bay, a shallow body of water that is dredged to accommodate the larger ships (some ships enter Newark Bay via the Arthur Kill). The port facility consists of two main dredged slips and multiple loading cranes. Metal containers are stacked in large arrays visible from the New Jersey Turnpike before being loaded onto rail cars and trucks.
The height of ships serving the port is limited by the Bayonne Bridge over Kill Van Kull, a limitation that will become more serious when the Panama Canal expansion project opens in 2014, allowing bigger ships to reach the port from Asia. Options to remedy the situation under consideration include jacking up the bridge, building a new bridge or a tunnel. Likely, a facility at MOTBY on the Upper New York Bay will be built to handle the larger ships.[3]
In 2009, the major port operators at Port Newark-Elizabeth included Maher terminals, APM terminal (A. P. Moller-Maersk), and PNCT (Port Newark Container terminal).
In 2011 PANYNJ restructured the lease of major tenant, Port Newark Container Terminal (PNCT). The agreement calls for a 20-year extension of PNCT's existing lease through 2050, subject to PNCT's investment of the $500 million and an expansion from 180 to about 287 acres to accommodate the additional volume. It is expected to generate an annual increase in container volume from Mediterranean Shipping Company, the world's second-largest shipping company from 414,000 to 1.1 million containers by 2030.[4][5] The deepening of the Kill van Kull, the raising of the Bayonne Bridge, and expansion of rail freight facilities are also elements of plans to accommodate anticipated larger volumes.
The western edge of Newark Bay was originally shallow tidal wetlands covering approximately 12 square miles (31 km2). In 1910s the City of Newark began excavating an angled shipping channel in the northeastern quadrant of the wetland which formed the basis of Port Newark.[6][7] Work on the channel and terminal facilities on its north side accelerated during World War I, when the federal government took control of Port Newark. During the war there were close to 25,000 troops stationed at the Newark Bay Shipyard.[8]
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was formed in 1921 [9] and the Newark Bay Channels were authorized by the Rivers and Harbors Acts in 1922. Shipping operations languished after the war, and in 1927, the City of Newark started construction of Newark Airport (now known as Newark Liberty International Airport) on the northwest quadrant of the wetlands which lay between Port Newark and the edge of the developed city. Port Authority took over the operations of Port Newark and Newark Airport in 1948 and began modernizing and expanding both facilities southward. In 1958, the Port Authority dredged another shipping channel which straightened the course of Bound Brook, the tidal inlet forming the boundary between Newark and Elizabeth. Dredged materials was used to create new upland south of the new Elizabeth Channel, where the Port Authority constructed the Elizabeth Marine Terminal. The first shipping facility to open upon the Elizabeth Channel was the new 90-acre (36 ha) Sea-Land Container Terminal, which was the prototype for virtually every other container terminal constructed thereafter.[10]
The building of the port facility antiquated most of the traditional waterfront port facilities in New York Harbor, leading to a steep decline in such areas as Manhattan, Hoboken, and Brooklyn. The automated nature of the facility requires far fewer workers and does not require the opening of containers before onward shipping.
The other significant seaport terminals under the auspices of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey:
|
||||||||||||||||||||