Los Angeles Harbor

Imports into the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports plunged even deeper into a recessionary hole in February, hitting lows not seen since 1997. With exports also sharply lower, the sluggish traffic at the nation's biggest cargo container complex is yet another symptom of the broad malaise that continues to grip world economies. In Southern California, the trade gateway supports more than 280,000 workers, and its slowdown is being felt across the region.

The Port of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Conservancy and a Long Beach firm have agreed to put on hold their dispute over the fate of a 38-acre site that operated as a full-service shipyard until 2005. The site, known as the old Southwest Marine facility, is deep inside the Port of L.A. and is where the port plans to put sludge it dredges from the bottom of the harbor to deepen the shipping channel. That would enable the port to accommodate the next generation of giant cargo ships.

The heavy-metal clash as rail cars slam together is like a symphony to Andrew Fox, and he can hear just how well each note is played as trains assemble on the railroad he runs. On a recent morning, Fox winced only once. "It can be too hard or too soft. You can just tell when it isn't quite right," said Fox, president of Pacific Harbor Line Inc., which operates inside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Cargo traffic at most of North America's busiest seaports in June crept slightly above the recession-wracked numbers recorded in May -- but not at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's biggest freight complex. Such a month-to-month decline is unusual at this time of year, port officials said. That's because June is when the ports usually see a pre-holiday retail season mini-bump in business from back-to-school products arriving from overseas. "It's a concern.

At a hiring hall in the seaside community of Wilmington, a handful of job hopefuls reminisced about boom times, when the place was mobbed night and day by nonunion dockworkers seeking employment and vendors selling tacos and work gloves. That was 2004 through 2007, when the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex was enjoying record-breaking gains in shipping that generated an abundance of work for "casual workers" designated to take jobs unfilled by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.

As the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach post another round of dismal monthly import statistics, a new assessment finds that the nation's busiest seaport complex will need at least four more years to fully recover its momentum -- not to mention the jobs, incomes and revenues that went with it -- after the worst global recession in 60 years. The recovery will be so slow and painful that a return to the pace set during the economic boom year of 2006 -- when the ports handled 15.8 million cargo containers bound for most parts of the U.S. -- won't come before 2013.

Several of the nation's biggest trade associations have fired a warning shot across the bow of the Port of Los Angeles, urging it to cease lobbying efforts to change a federal law that could greatly affect the way cargo is hauled into and out of the nation's seaports. The warning came Tuesday in a letter signed by 24 groups representing U.S. retailers, agricultural interests, apparel and textile firms, trucking groups and logistics officials. It's a response to the port's recent hiring of Atlanta-based Gephardt Group to try to change part of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act to help reduce air pollution at the port.

A program to cut diesel emissions at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach by phasing out older cargo trucks is far ahead of schedule, and already has delivered cleaner air to nearby neighborhoods that have been enveloped by fumes, the mayors of both cities said Thursday. A year after the adjacent ports launched their "clean trucks" program, new, low-emission big rigs now account for about a third of the trucks hauling cargo to and from the complex, the busiest harbors in the nation.

California transportation officials say that a new truck expressway is needed to handle an expected post-recession trade boom at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest seaport complex. But the neighborhood that has already borne the brunt of port pollution is setting up a legal roadblock to stop it. "There are at least 21 days to 28 days a year when the air is so bad here that we do not let the children go outside to play," said Elva Carrillo, who helps her husband, Alfred, run a small private school affiliated with his Apostolic Faith Church in Wilmington, just 750 feet from the proposed truck expressway.

The nation's busiest seaport complex was idle Thursday as thousands of union dockworkers took the day off to weigh a proposed new contract. Cranes and terminals at the twin harbors of Los Angeles and Long Beach were silent while rank-and-file members of the International Warehousemen's and Longshoremen's Union gathered to review a three-year contract negotiated with the steamship lines that employ them. They are expected back to work today.