Portland considers trucking international cargo to California

Portland considers trucking international cargo to California    The upriver and underutilized port of Portland, Ore., will study the cost of trucking containers to California in an attempt to position itself as a less congested gateway and alternative to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
   Officials of the Oregon port, government and business representatives discussed a range of proposals to help attract additional container business to the port during the inaugural meeting of the Columbia River Container Service Committee Feb. 16.
   The port of Portland said action items from meeting included:
   * Assessing trucking opportunities from Portland to California.
   * Creating a transloading task force to assess regional transloading opportunities.
   * Creating an upriver distribution center task force to facilitate developing upriver distribution centers.
   * Taking various marketing and communication measures, such as marketing the port of Portland to Idaho importers.
   Restricted by a shallow draft, the Pacific Northwest port has lost several container services and has only one transpacific container service and one European service calling direct.
   The Columbia River Container Service Committee is expected to meet again in April.