Nadler Wants Brooklyn Container Terminal

The Port of New York and New Jersey should develop container-handling facilities in Brooklyn while continuing to expand in New Jersey and Staten Island, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., told a port audience Monday.

Long-term projections call for increased volume, Nadler said at the annual New York-New Jersey Port Industry Day. “We will need every acre we can lay our hands on to take care of that business,” he said.

Nadler is a longtime advocate of developing cargo facilities in Brooklyn, part of which is in his district. He is the chief proponent of a cross-harbor rail tunnel that could connect Brooklyn with rail lines in New Jersey. He said he hopes to include funding for the tunnel in the next federal transportation authorization.

Most of the port’s container facilities are in New Jersey, where there is better access to highway and rail links to inland areas. Brooklyn’s lone container-handling facility is the Red Hook Container Terminal, where American Stevedoring renewed its lease last year after a five-year battle with the port authority, which favored redeveloping the land for residential and retail use.

New York City recently completed a study of a proposed container terminal in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park area, but the port authority has no current plans to develop it.

Rick Larrabee, director of the port authority’s port commerce department, said the agency is reviewing all options for facilities to handle future cargo needs, but that its current priorities are completing a $1.6 billion channel-deepening program, replacing the Bayonne Bridge over the channel leading to container terminals in Port Newark/Elizabeth and Staten Island, and encouraging greater use of on-dock rail.

Contact Joseph Bonney at jbonney@joc.com.