A small port with big dreams

Could the Port of Tacoma borrow a page from a small port’s playbook?

Consider the story of the Port of Grays Harbor.

In the middle of last decade, the Port of Grays Harbor had an honest conversation about whether it should mothball its docks and terminals and quit trying to attract new business.

The port had sought some of the lucrative container trade that filled the ports of Tacoma and Seattle. No success there.

It had even lured a few cruise ships to visit on their twice yearly repositioning trips from the summer Alaska trade to the Mexican and Caribbean trade.

That business was short-lived.

And the business that had traditionally sustained the port — logs, lumber and pulp and paper — was drying up in the face of logging declines and mill closures.

At its low point, traffic to the port amounted to just eight ship calls for the year, recalled Gary Nelson, the port’s executive director.

“We gave some serious thought about just closing down,” he said. “It was expensive to maintain the facilities, and we just weren’t getting business.”

But port commissioners decided to persevere. And the port focused its efforts on rail-dependent export trade.

That policy, ton by ton, has made Grays Harbor a shining star of growth in a gray sky of decline among West Coast ports. The Wall Street Journal featured the port’s achievements in August.

This year, the Port of Grays Harbor expects to host as nearly as many ships in a month than it once saw in a year.

The Longshore Union local increased its ranks 35 percent, and the port has seen private companies invest some $200 million in new infrastructure, said the port.

Total cargo moving through the port this year is expected to be about 1.4 million metric tons, the best year’s total since 1988. The port expects that could double by the time new facilities come on line in a year or so.

The port now has a new facility where AGP, the nation’s largest farmers cooperative, exports Midwest distillers dried grains and soybean meal. The company is adding new capacity.

Imperium Biodiesel and Westway Terminals are using a new bulk liquid facility to export and import alternative fuels.

Pasha Automotive Services is exporting Chrysler vehicles and large construction and farm equipment to Asia. Grays Harbor now handles a third of the vehicle exports on the West Coast. Last year, the port handled 21,000 export vehicles.

On a waterfront tract near the port’s terminals, the state is expected to build concrete pontoon sections for the state’s new state Route 520 bridge across Lake Washington.

All of this activity came despite a limited port capital budget available to build new facilities.

The port has built new rail marshalling yards and improved some of its terminals, but the bulk of the money for the expansions has been private, said Nelson.

The port’s director attributes Grays Harbor’s turnaround to a tight focus on its strong points: its close proximity to the Pacific compared with Columbia River and Puget Sound ports, and its uncrowded connections to the West’s two trunkline railroads, Union Pacific and BNSF, via short line Puget Sound and Pacific.

Nelson believes that companies who build their own facilities at the port like AGP has are more likely to be long-term customers than companies who merely use port-owned facilities.

“If they’ve made an $80 million investment on their own,” he said. “It’s not easy to walk away when they next new deal comes along,” he said.

The volume of cargo is dwarfed by that handled in Tacoma and Seattle. However, for Grays Harbor, where unemployment was 12.5 percent in September, the new port traffic means a lot.

Nelson said the port’s success has put it on the map for companies looking for export facilities. “Once we attracted AGP and now the others, we’re fielding more inquiries than ever,” he said.

John Gillie: 253-597-8663 john.gillie@thenewstribune.com