Cargo Business Techwire

Friday, September 5, 2014

Venice port authority announces plans for a mega container port

The head of the Venice port authority announced new plans for a mega-port that will cost up to $3.6 billion, even though Italy decided to ban the world's largest cruise ships from calling at the city.

Paolo Costa, a former mayor of Venice and now president of its port authority, said Venice was in danger of becoming a "Disney-style heritage attraction" with no sources of revenue other than tourism, and that it should return to its roots as a successful trading power.

"Venice cannot just be a heritage Disneyland preserved in mothballs," Costa said. "That is a vision of necrophiliacs. Without a busy port, Venice will die. The platform would enable the Adriatic, not only Venice but also Trieste, to resume a role in world trade," he told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Venice currently handles a tiny amount of trade at its current container terminal, approximately 450,000 TEUs annually.

Costa said he wanted to see the construction of the massive offshore port, which would cost between $2.6 and $3.6 billion, in the Adriatic just beyond the barrier islands that protect Venice from the open sea. The funding will come from both the government and private enterprise, he added.

The Venice mega port would be located eight miles offshore, where the sea depth is around 70 feet, allowing the largest container ships on the planet to dock and unload their cargo. Sheltered by a three-mile-long breakwater, it would also feature an oil terminal.

Last month the Italian government announced that starting in 2015, it will ban big cruise liners over 96,000 tons from their current Venetian route, which takes them within a few hundred yards of St Mark's Square and the Grand Canal.

Instead they will dredge a new channel, known as the Contorta Sant'Angelo, which will be far from Venice's historic center.

Environmentalists oppose the new channel, saying it will alter the ecology of the lagoon and result in surges of seawater that might damage the city's centuries-old buildings.

The head of the port authority said the lagoon has been altered so radically over the centuries that it is no longer a pristine environment. He said he hopes the dredging can be accomplished within two years.

"Given that the size of ships has tripled in recent years, finding a solution is even more urgent," Costa said.

For more of The Telegraph story: telegraph.co.uk

More Techwire stories

Environmentalists to sue Army Corps of Engineers over Miami dredge

Long Beach terminal operator ITS chooses APS crane OCR technology

MacGregor to do RoRo conversion for Stena North Sea

Dive teams search L.A.-Long Beach port areas for bombs and bodies