Devine: N.Y. faces competitive threat from ports to south

Devine: N.Y. faces competitive threat from ports to south The head of New York Container Terminal challenged businesses and labor in the Port of New York and New Jersey “to work a little harder” if they want the harbor to remain preeminent on the East Coast.
   Jim Devine, president and chief executive officer of the container terminal at Howland Hook on Staten Island, made his remarks in Newark, N.J., as one of two executives presented with the 2007 “Connie Award” from the Containerization and Intermodal Institute. The other was Raymond Ebeling, the chairman and chief executive officer of the U.S. flag carrier American Roll-On Roll-off Carrier.
   Devine said the region now faces the possibility of being eclipsed by ports in the South where states have a strong focus on the terminal business. He said 8,000-TEU ships will not come to the harbor, even if physical obstacles like the Bayonne Bridge are replaced, unless operations improve.
   Ebeling, who was credited by the institute as having pioneered ocean-rail intermodal “landbridge” services, now heads a U.S.-flag roll-on/roll-off carrier owned by Sweden’s Wallenius Lines and Norway’s Wilhelmsen Lines.
   He predicted that shipping was entering a “green decade” where there would be increased efforts to reduce both air pollution and oil ballast water discharges by ships. He also predicted increased focus on landside infrastructure and a continuing focus on security — both on trying to prevent terrorist attacks and finding ways for restarting international trade if a terrorist attack does occur. ' Chris Dupin