Ports in Portland Region Keep Commerce Flowing
Published Feb 13, 2009
Cargo ships move in and out of the Port of Portland, which handled a record 15 million tons of freight in 2007.
Three years running, Portland International Airport has topped Condé Nast Traveler’s ranking of the best U.S. airports and achieved the nation’s highest marks for security, comfort and design.
It doesn’t hurt that PDX, the airport code by which locals know it, carries an industry-leading track record for on-time flights and went green long before the environment became top of mind. PDX electricity hums from solar panels; its low-flush toilets save about 80,000 gallons of water daily; and its food operations turn waste into compost.
Guidance of the airport falls to the Port of Portland, which also administers operations at three general-aviation airports: Hillsboro, west of Portland; Troutdale, east of Portland; and Mulino, south of the city.
A record 14.6 million passengers used PDX in 2007, and Port of Portland Executive Director Bill Wyatt is equally proud of the volume of cargo handled by the four port-owned terminals (not to mention the business generated at the port’s six industrial parks).
“Due largely to the cargo moving through the Port of Portland, Oregon exports [in 2007] totaled $16.5 billion,” Wyatt says. Marine freight reached a record 15 million tons, with 4.6 million tons of grain exceeding any total from the past decade.
A major entry point for Toyota Motor Sales USA, the port moves 450,000 vehicles a year.
With a 10,000-acre portfolio, the Port of Portland created the Troutdale Reynolds Industrial Park from a former 700-acre Reynolds Metals Inc. site. FedEx Corp., its first tenant, plans to build a $130 million ground-freight facility and hire 950 people.
The port itself will undertake $500 million of infrastructure work in the next three years to keep air and port operations cutting-edge – money that Wyatt says is well spent. “The port generates nearly $8 in tax revenue for every $1 it collects in property taxes,” he says.
Rail Enhances Vancouver Port
Across the Columbia River in Washington, the Port of Vancouver USA represents another vital economic link for the region. Vancouver joins Portland, Seattle and Tacoma, Wash., as one of the top four Pacific Northwest ports, says spokesman Nelson Holmberg. The port has embarked on a $137 million rail project that will lengthen internal trackage from 16 miles to 44 miles.
“We’re talking about more jobs and more cargo once that’s finished,” with the first leg opening in 2009, Holmberg says. The port’s bulk-cargo niche led it to attract 5.8 million tons of freight in 2007, including 265,000 tons of copper concentrate, 132,000 tons of bentonite clay, 308 wind turbines and more than 41,000 Subaru vehicles.
The Vancouver port, which is now developing a 218-acre marine industrial park, recently purchased its second $4 million mobile harbor crane. In 2008, the first crane heaved five 90-ton reels of steel cable onto flat railcars for installation of a gondola at a British Columbia ski resort.
“The cranes have allowed us to do things like handle that (type of) special cargo, which means more business for us,” Holmberg says.
Story by Gary Perilloux
Photo by Jeff Adkins
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