MARINE EXCHANGE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA A unique public-private partnership ensures safe, secure, and efficient operations at the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex. BY EDWARD LUNDQUIST
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Coast Guard OUTLOOK
HONEST BROKER The efficient operation of the ports and their many terminals relies on information. The exchange’s Maritime Information Service (MIS) collects, collates and promulgates the schedule for all ships arriving, departing and moving inside the ports. The exchange makes available a 24-hour a day data feed to subscribers to manage their operations. The Marine Exchange of Southern California is a 501 C (6) non-profit organization, which operates on user fees, and includes board representation from the various stakeholders in the area, including container ship, break-bulk, tanker, tug and barge, terminal and local passenger operators, as well as pilots, steamship agents, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and the maritime law community. The Marine Exchange is a unique public-private partnership, with 20 employees whose salaries are covered by the user fees, and six Coast Guard members. According to the exchange’s director, Kip Louttit a retired Coast Guard captain, the exchange is considered an “honest broker,” and the “trusted maritime information clearinghouse” for providing services and reports about what’s happening in the Southern California area to the waterfront business community and beyond. There are about 50 to 60 ships in the San Pedro port complex on any given day. Speaking at the Maritime Security West conference held at San Pedro in August, Louttit said the port complex had 32 ships calling from 26 different ports over the three days of the conference, including U.S. ports such as Richmond, San Francisco, El Segundo, Honolulu, Seattle, Oakland, Benicia, and Valdez. Ships also called from foreign ports in Brazil, Canada, Germany, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, and Taiwan.
The Coast Guard Cutter Benjamin Bottoms pulls into the Port of Los Angeles channel toward its homeport at Coast Guard Base Los Angeles-Long Beach in San Pedro, California, March 18, 2019.
COAST GUARD PHOTO BY PETTY OFFICER 1ST CLASS PATRICK KELLEY
The busy seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, although seperate operations, are right next to each other, and together they are one of the busiest ports in the world, and North America’s busiest container port. The San Pedro Bay port complex, which includes the two ports, is a busy and special place, according to Coast Guard Capt. Rebecca Ore, deputy commander for Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach. “It’s an incredible concentration of interagency resources. Collaboration is a competitive advantage.” Ship owners have always needed to get their ships into a harbor and quickly discharge and onload cargo so they can get back to sea. In the early says of the port, shippers hired lookouts to serve as runners to alert the ship’s agents and cargo handlers that their ship was standing into the harbor. The ship’s agents, line handlers and stevedores would be waiting at the dock. Time was money, and that information saved time. Runners were later replaced by a service run by the Chamber of Commerce, called the Marine Exchange, to facilitate the efficient management of the ships coming and going. The exchange no longer uses chalkboards, index cards or telescopes. Today it relies on radios, radars, and computers, although there is still a massive set of binoculars in the operations center. Most of all, it relies on partnerships and collaboration, because everyone benefits from the safe, efficient and secure operations of the ports. Today the Marine Exchange of Southern California is located on a hill at Battery Leary/Merriam, a World War I-era harbor defense installation near Point Fermin in what is now Angels Gate Park, with a commanding view of San Pedro Bay and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. While the bulk of the exchange’s business involves the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complex, it also monitors the traffic for Port Hueneme in Ventura County to the north and San Diego to the south, as well as the Chevron Offshore Petroleum Terminal at El Segundo, and the Naval Weapons Station at Seal Beach.
