Los Angeles Harbor

Trade at international ports is on track to drop more than 10% this year, one of the steepest declines ever, according to a new maritime industry report. Cargo ships will carry 27 million fewer containers by year's end than they did in 2008 -- a reduction roughly equivalent to all of the cargo containers handled by the five busiest U.S. seaports in a typical year, according to London-based Drewry Shipping Consultants' Container Forecaster Report. "There has never been a decline like this before.

It sounded like a good deal: The Port of Los Angeles offered to pay $20,000 incentives as part of its Clean Trucks Program, launched Oct. 1 in conjunction with the neighboring Long Beach port to reduce pollution from trucking fleets serving the harbor. That sent Vic La Rosa into overdrive. The owner of Total Transportation Services Inc.

In another sign of how deep the global recession has become, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Friday reported their worst combined import statistics for September in nine years. September is often the busiest month at the nation's biggest port complex, making it one of the best barometers of the health of the economy and international trade. The port of Los Angeles received 309,078 containers packed with imported goods in September, representing a decline of 16% from the same month last year and 27% from September 2006, L.A.'s best month ever for imports.

The Port of Los Angeles said Wednesday it plans to cancel a controversial contract with a Chinese company to buy an X-ray unit designed to scan cargo for dangerous devices. Port officials said the $2.4-million Mobile Linear Accelerator X-ray Scanning Unit failed field tests during the 6-month period specified in the April 2008 contract with Beijing-based Nuctech Inc. As a result, the unit, which is currently installed on a diesel truck, will be returned to the manufacturer.

An ambitious plan to clean up once-filthy air around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has shifted into high gear. Hundreds of 1988-and-older trucks have been banned since October. Others that don't meet 2007 air pollution standards began paying a $70 fee last week each time they haul cargo to and from the ports. This week, the first of a fleet of electric trucks will debut.

The standing joke about the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach used to be that they were like the diesel version of elephant graveyards: the place where old trucks went to die. But lately, they have become a proving ground for technology that produces little or no pollution. On Tuesday, the first of 25 heavy-duty all-electric trucks rolled off a new Los Angeles assembly line. All are slated to work at the Port of Los Angeles or to make short hauls to and from the harbor.

Traffic at the nation's busiest seaport complex showed another steep drop in May compared with the same month in 2008, although some economists say the ports could begin to recover late this year. Last month, container imports at the Port of Los Angeles, the nation's busiest, were down about 18%. Exports from the port were down 7.1% for the month, dropping by the equivalent of about 150,000 cargo containers. Through May, imports to the port were down 17.7% to about 1.

Deep inside the nation's busiest seaport lurks the old Southwest Marine shipyard, a collection of rusting corrugated-metal buildings, broken windows and dark interiors that has appeared in more than a dozen films and television shows, including "Die Hard," "24" and "CSI: Miami." But these days, the 38-acre site at the Port of Los Angeles is the setting for another kind of high-stakes drama, this time involving competing visions of the port's future.

The fishing isn't as good as it used to be for the commercial fishermen working the waters off Southern California. Their landings of squid are barely more than a quarter of what they were in 2000. Seasonal quotas on other seafood are so low that they can be reached in as little as a week. Still, the most problematic catch for what's left of a once-flourishing fleet is sometimes encountered on land. The fishermen's hauls -- mainly squid, sardines and mackerel -- are bound for Asia.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach remained the nation's busiest seaport complex for cargo containers in 2007, even though they saw a decline in traffic for the first time in at least 20 years. But in a shift, exports grew as the dollar's declining value helped U.S. companies ride into new markets and to record-breaking sales. One of those benefiting was Los Angeles Grain Terminal in Long Beach, a 49-year-old company that packs cargo containers with grain from the Midwest for sale in Asia.