The Port of Sacramento, now known as the Port of West Sacramento, is an

inland port An inland port is a port on an inland waterway, such as a river, lake, or canal, which may or may not be connected to the sea. The term "inland port" is also used to refer to a dry port. Examples The United States Army Corps of Engineers pub ...

West Sacramento, California West Sacramento (also known as West Sac) is a city in Yolo County, California, United States. The city is separated from Sacramento by the Sacramento River, which also separates Sacramento and Yolo counties. It is a fast-growing community; the ...

, in the

Sacramento metropolitan area The Greater Sacramento area refers to a metropolitan region in Northern California comprising either the U.S. Census Bureau defined Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade metropolitan statistical area or the larger Sacramento–Roseville combine ...

. It is northeast of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, and is centered in the

California Central Valley The Central Valley is a broad, elongated, flat valley that dominates the interior of California. It is wide and runs approximately from north-northwest to south-southeast, inland from and parallel to the Pacific coast of the state. It cover ...

, one of the richest agricultural regions in the world.

History

Construction of the Port of Sacramento was first approved by Congress under the

Rivers and Harbors Act Rivers and Harbors Act may refer to one of many pieces of legislation and appropriations passed by the United States Congress since the first such legislation in 1824. At that time Congress appropriated $75,000 to improve navigation on the Ohio and ...

of July 24, 1946. This act approved the construction of the

Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel The Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel (also known as Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel or SRDWSC) is a canal from the Port of Sacramento in West Sacramento, California, to the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay. It wa ...

, a 30-foot-deep, 43-mile-long shipping channel from

Suisun Bay Suisun Bay ( ; Wintun for "where the west wind blows") is a shallow tidal estuary (a northeastern extension of the San Francisco Bay) in Northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, forming the ...

to an inland harbor at Washington Lake. The project started construction 3 years later in 1949 and the port was opened to deep sea traffic in 1963.U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (2008). Sacramento and Stockton Deep Water Ship Channels Dredging. Retrieved from https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=b5ccdb0975095a256534f0393a80b039&tab=core&_cview=0

Operations

Since July 1, 2013 the port and its operations are being leased by SSA Marine from the Port of Sacramento for a minimum of 5 years for a minimum annual payment of $650,000. This move by the port is intended to allow it to shift focus on developing its other available real estate assets, and further the growth of the port. It also transfers all liabilities and operational expenses to SSA Marine.

Cargo

The Port of Sacramento does not receive the high volume of ships that other California ports handle. This is mainly because the Port of Sacramento is a “Non-Container” port. The majority of all shipping worldwide is done by

container ships A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermoda ...

, and the fact that the Port of Sacramento is not set up to handle this type of cargo cuts it out of a large percentage of port traffic. The Port of Sacramento's cargo is mainly of the agricultural, industrial and heavy equipment type, and the port specializes in

bulk cargo Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities. Description Bulk cargo refers to material in either liquid or granular, particulate form, as a mass of relatively small solids, such as petroleum/ crude oi ...

. This works out well for the port because of its location in a dense agricultural region. Some of the ports’ main cargo is the exportation of local agriculture such as rice, barley, wheat, almonds and corn along with other local products such as lumber, cement, clay and metals. The Port of Sacramento is also set up to handle heavy machinery such as wind turbines, steel, generators and transformers.

Port services

California's Green Trade Corridor Marine Highway project to Port of Sacramento The channel depth is about 30 feet (10 meters), and length is 43 miles. The port area is 1,112 acres. With one 120-ton mobile harbor crane, the port specializes in bulk, break-bulk, agriculture, and construction cargo (no

containerization Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers and ISO containers). Containerization is also referred as "Container Stuffing" or "Container Loading", which is the p ...

shipments). For rail, the port has both

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...

(UP) and

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Burlington Northern Santa Fe, LLC is the parent company of the BNSF Railway (formerly the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway). The company is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, which is controlled by investor Warre ...

(BNSF) railroads lines for North America shipping. Local rail service is provided by the Sierra Northern Railway. The port is served by highways:

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Californi ...

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one ...

and

California State Route 99 State Route 99 (SR 99), commonly known as Highway 99 or, simply, as 99 (without any further designation), is a north–south state highway in the U.S. state of California, stretching almost the entire length of the Central Valley. Fr ...

. The port is part of the California Green Trade Corridor project, as ships move cargo much greener than trucks and trains. Green Trade Corridor Marine Highway (ports of Oakland-Stockton-West Sacramento) can improve goods movement through Northern California.portofoakland.com, California Green Trade Corridor
/ref>

Recent developments

The Port of West Sacramento is an independent special district created by the State of California, governed by a commission of four appointees by the Mayor of West Sacramento and one by the county board of supervisors. The port is managed by the city of

West Sacramento West Sacramento (also known as West Sac) is a city in Yolo County, California, United States. The city is separated from Sacramento by the Sacramento River, which also separates Sacramento and Yolo counties. It is a fast-growing community; the ...

and has projects to expand the services of the port. In February 2010 in partnership with the ports of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

and Stockton, the Port of Sacramento has received a $30 million award from the

United States Department of Transportation The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the President of the United States and ...

(D.O.T.) as part of its America's Marine Highway Program. This program is designed to increase the amount of goods transported across the U.S. on ships and therefore decrease the amount transported by trucks and rail. This is thought to have many environmental and economic benefits. This funding will be used to start a movement of containers between all three of these ports. The Port of Sacramento has since used a portion of this funding in order to give it the ability to accept containers. The main thing they have done is purchased a crane that will allow the port to lift containers on and off the ships or barges. Sacramento has high hopes for its port to increase its cargo traffic and economic output with these advancements. West_Sacramento,_California

Environmental impacts

One of the main issues with the Port of Sacramento is that the Deep Water Ship Channel needs to be regularly dredged to maintain an adequate depth for oceangoing ships. This dredging process presents a number of problems, including how it impacts the water quality. One measure of quality is the salinity of the water. As the channel is deepened, more salt water from the bay enters the system to maintain sea level, which is an issue because the affected area includes drinking water intakes. These intakes require that the water be below a certain maximum salinity level that can be exceeded due to the dredging. The salinity of the water can also have negative effects on local fisheries. Dredging also disturbs rare and endangered species. One of these species is the

Delta smelt The delta smelt (''Hypomesus transpacificus'') is an endangered slender-bodied smelt, about long, in the family Osmeridae. Non-Indigenous to the upper Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary of California, it mainly inhabits the freshwater-saltwater ...

which has its main spawning grounds in and around the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel. The dredging itself can harm the spawning habitat directly by destroying eggs placed by the fish in the dredging zone. The spawning habitat can also be disturbed by the increase in salinity, the increased traffic the dredging will allow, and the noise created while dredging. Another species affected by the dredging and the water quality is the winter run salmon. In order to maintain the water quality needed for this species' habitat, additional releases from upstream reservoirs will need to be made. These releases will negatively affect the amount of water stored in the reservoirs, which is needed for drinking water, agricultural purposes as well as providing cold water flows for the migration of the salmon. In other words, there may not be enough fresh water to make sure the salinity levels are maintained under the maximum amounts as well as serve all the other needs of the ecosystem and the people in the area. Another water quality issue is the dredging process itself agitates the underwater landscape and releases sediment into the surrounding water. Also many times the dredged material is placed on the tops of levees which is subject to erosion into the surrounding waters during rains. The dredging does allow shipping to continue through the channel, which does confer some environmental benefit by eliminating 24,585 trips by trucks along the

corridor.Environmental Protection Agency, (April 25, 2011). Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/region9/nepa/letters/SacrRiverDeepwaterShpgChannelDSEIS.pdf''

References

baydeltaoffice.water.ca.gov Methodology for Flow and Salinity Estimates in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh

External links

Port of Sacramento website
{{Authority control

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

Sacramento River West Sacramento, California Transportation buildings and structures in Yolo County, California Economy of Sacramento, California Transport infrastructure completed in 1963 1963 establishments in California

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...