Port Officials are still politicians not maritime professionals
Published Brownsville Herald 7/15/2007
On June 10, The Brownsville Herald, published Dan Reyna’s view on his perception of Port of Brownsville “faux pas” and pointed to the development of the small fishing Port of Mezquital. As I have mentioned in my articles previously, I am professionally involved in the Maritime industry and have been disappointed by many of the actions and inactions of the Port of Brownsville management. In an article on March 11, I wrote about my invitation to a Propeller Club meeting of Ernesto Morris Delgado, Director of Strategic Infrastructure, for Tamaulipus and that state’s administrator for Mezquital. Along with several of his associates he attended and made himself available to discuss subjects of interest to both sides of the border. A number of local business persons did participate in in-depth discussions. I would have hoped that port officials would have, as well, but saw no evidence of it.
My associates and I have developed interests in the Mezquital area over the last three or more years and see a great future for a Port to serve Matamoros and Northern Mexico and give a focus to the developing ports in Central and South America that Brownsville is ignoring. Mr. Reyna is most astute at evaluating the impact of Mezquital on the “bridge project” and potential tenets for the new facilities. I was not able, however, to find any evidence that AmFELS has secured a space or has been invited to locate in Port Mezquital. As to the estimate that El Mezquital could in the future receive most or all cargos destined for Mexico, I could easily see eventualities where that could happen; especially, in developing new and evolving new markets and providing an alternative that only involves dealing with one set of Federal inspections. Further, one only need look at a recent satellite picture of the border area to see that the bay area inside the barrier island, once dredged could easily provide the basis for a port much larger than is available at Brownsville.
Mr. Reyna’s assertion equating roll-on-roll-off to containerization is misleading. The basic concept is very different as the ship plays the part of a bridge from one port to another and the trucking companies book the freight and carry it from origin to destination. The advantage is that only a minimal dock structure is needed and little in the way of expensive equipment such as cranes and container carriers. All that is really necessary is a hill about 8 to 10 feet above the water and 16 to 25 feet of water depth at the “dock”. In fact when I first began Isabel Cortes Ferry Service about ten years ago, that is all that we had at Port Isabel to serve, a roll on – roll off passenger ship, carrying 300-400 passengers and up to 365 cars or 85 tractor trailers or a mix of both, also including all manner of heavy equipment. We were booked months in advance for each voyage. I also question the allusion to securing Asian freight from the Port of Manzanillo in substantial amounts and bypassing ports like Altamira and Veracruz. The current shortage in dock space due to the new interests in drilling just off the Texas coast should be a boon to the Port of Brownsville, I don’t see evidence of that either. More recently on July 11, “The Herald” published another of Mr. Reyna’s inciteful looks at “Port” machinations and even poached on my column’s title “Today’s Commonsense” for his banner, and in this case it served a worthy purpose in demonstrating how decisions are “not” made.
He pointed out the weaknesses of the process and the ineptness of the players. Further, there seems to be more public interest than usual in the evaluation of Bay Bridge LLC as a tenant for Port of Brownsville. The entrée of the faith based activist Valley Interfaith in a business related decision, as well as a number of other luminaries excite the imagination to conspiracies and nefarious happenings. Could it be that there is blood in the water for the sharks to circle? Unfortunately, I don’t think so! Perhaps it is just as simple as, a moratorium was declared to limit potential ecological risks to Port waters or even to economically protect the home town folks from the mega-companies such as Bay Bridge LLC and its parents the humungous Adani Group of Companies. Adding Bay Bridge wouldn’t increase competition in the shipbreaking industries as the ships come from the mothballed U.S. fleet and are contracted by the Maritime Administration. Personally, I would like to keep U.S. government business first to U.S. companies. Other ships come from the commercial fleet and are bid on competitively world wide. So far there is no impact on competition within our region.
The competition does come in the form of laborers with particular skills such as welders for instance. In that case the competition would also includes AmFELS who recruits similarly trained workers. At the moment nation wide there is such a shortage of these trade workers the have been recruited using temporary visas like the H-1, which I am told have been filled long ago. The shortages appear so pronounced that a local company has been implicated in supplying workers to AmFELS with false documents. Bay Bridge LLC and Adani Group are relatively new to the ship breaking industry and came on the scene sometime around 2003 in Anani’s determination to diversify as they were formerly primarily traders in groceries, pharmaceuticals, tea, rice, clothing, etc. For the most part the four other ship recyclers have a history in the maritime field, sometimes colorful because of the intense competition but stable and measurable. In an article I wrote in 2004, I described my impressions when I visited the ESCO facility and was given a tour by the President Richard Jaross. I was amazed at the attention paid to each little opportunity for a potentially dangerous material to find its way into the soil or water. I was also amazed at the amount of scrutiny given by the Coast Guard and the other regulating authorities. I cannot make a recommendation as to whether the Bay Bridge folks should get a lease, rather I would pose the question; why not? The folks in Oregon chose to deny Bay Bridge a permit to recycle ships but that may very well because they just don’t want shipbreakers in their yard.
The bottom line to both of the above issues is that the government and politicians are making decisions based on political considerations such as public and contributor influence. It should be a pure business decision based on the port’s strategic marketing plan, the impact on other port business and the specifics of future goals for the region. What is needed is that all transportation facilities in our region should be joined into an authority and a professional management team hired to manage them as a single resource. The piecemeal political approach is endangering the future of us all. Should Bay Bridge become disenchanted with the political bickering, the folks at Mezquital might just make a better deal.