The biggest challenge to Washington trade

In the stark but beautiful coaston the northwestern edge of the NorthAmerican continent where it rains 10 feeta year sits a little port with big ambitions to change traditional trade routes.

With only 14,000 residents, Prince Rupert, B.C., sees a 17 percent jump in it spopulation whenever a cruise ship arrives.In the mid-1990s, when big bulk carriers stopped coming by Prince Rupert for its lumber and pulp, preferring instead toship cargo in containers, Don Krusel, who became port authority CEO in 1991, says, We looked death in the eye.

Krusel realized that Prince Rupert was in a strategic location. When vessels werecaught in Los Angeles waiting to unload, it became clear there was room for another port. But when the town floated the idea of creating a world-class port, recalls Krusel, People wondered what we weresmoking … besides salmon.

The region took the plunge. Today,Prince Rupert says it has the mostmodern grain terminal in North America.Its also the most productive port in North America in terms of its ability to move cargo. Containers, on average, stay in theharbor only 12 hours before being loadedon a train bound for Chicago, the samedestination for most of the cargo going through the ports of Seattle and Tacoma.While other ports are seeing less traffic,Prince Rupert continues to grow. In January, the port received environmental approvals for Phase II, a $650 million expansion that would quadruple itscapacity to 2 million TEUs a year, about the capacity of the Port of Seattle.

Any expansion could mean trouble for Puget Sound ports not just because of the productivity of Prince Rupert. One hundred percent of Prince Ruperts cargo passes through security X-rays, compared to 3 to 5 percent at most ports. The gentle grades of the railway mean longer trains can beused. Thanks to special transport corridors, trains arent caught at crossings.And since the trains cross through mountains with wide valleys, they seldom face the landslides and avalanches that often delay cargo headed through the Cascades.

Critics point out that Port Prince Rupert has the disadvantage of having no local market for shippers to serve, and few exports to fill out bound ships. And Krusel insists Prince Rupert is not in direct competition with Puget Sound ports, anyway. We sell speed and reliability, Krusel says. The port concentrates on high value goods and high fashion, for which time is of the essence.

But faster shipments mean lower carrying costs for importers. Since Prince Rupert represents the shortest sailing distance from Asia and the quickest rail link to Chicago, it also has a smallercarbon footprint. Even when Seattle operates efficiently, says Krusel, importers tell him their cargoreaches Midwestern destinations three to seven days faster through Prince Rupert.

And unlike Seattle, whose port generates complaints for the pollution and truck traffic it generates, in Prince Rupert thousands of residents came tothe terminal to celebrate when the first ship came in in October 2007. Residents recognize their future depends on the port, says Krusel, so if there is a slow down on the dock, the workers have to answer for it at the local Safeway.