Northern California/Mid-Pacific Gateway

The Northern California, Mid-Pacific Gateway Office encompasses the maritime region north of Point Conception in California to the Oregon border. It also includes the Pacific islands of Hawaii, Guam and the US Marianas. In Northern California, there are eight significant commercial ports: Redwood City, San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond, Benicia, Stockton, West Sacramento, and Humboldt Bay. According to the American Association of Port Authorities, the Port of Oakland is the fifth largest container port in the US and third largest in California, behind Los Angeles and Long Beach. Hawaii has its central commercial port in Honolulu, along with commercial feeder ports on each of the mainly inhabited island. Guam is expanding its port and infrastructure in response to the planned relocation of US military personnel and operations from Japan. The US Marianas have one commercial port.

The Gateway Office has working relationships with key maritime interests and all the ports in its area of responsibility including steamship lines, shipping associations, port terminal operators, labor, public interest groups and others. It works closely with other federal and state agencies such as the US Coast Guard, Homeland Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), US Army Corps of Engineers, as well as California’s transportation, agriculture, security and emergency response agencies and local government agencies through the regional Area Maritime Security Committee, comprised of local and regional security and emergency response agencies.

Northern California is the location of two maritime related Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants—California’s Green Trade Corridor (also known as the M-580 marine highway corridor). The Green Trade Corridor grant was the largest of the port-related grants in the first TIGER program. It combines infrastructure investments in three ports—Oakland, Stockton and West Sacramento that will support a new marine highway container service on the M-580 corridor between the inland ports and the hub port of Oakland, which will offer new shipping opportunities to the regions distributors and agricultural producers. A recent TIGER-12 (2012) grant has been approved for the Port of Oakland’s Outer Harbor Intermodal Terminal (OHIT) project that will redevelop portions of the former Oakland Army Base into a new intermodal freight transfer facility containing new rail tracks and transloading facilities. Hawaii is the site of a TIGER grant that has rebuilt its aging Pier 29 complex which will contain an important freight transfer facility where freight containers brought to the island by major steamship lines are then transferred to the outer islands for distribution and return. More than 90% of Hawaii’s cargo needs are moved by waterborne commerce. Guam is redeveloping its harbor facilities with assistance from the Maritime Administration.