Having long been the busiest port on the East Coast[3] it became the busiest port by maritimecargo volume in the United States in 2022[4][5] and is a major economic engine for the region.[6][7]
The region's airports make the port the nation's top gateway for international flights and its busiest center for overall passenger and air freight flights. There are two foreign-trade zones (FTZ) within the port.
Geography
Port district
Encompassing an area within an approximate 25-mile (40 km) radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument, the port district comprises all or part of seventeen counties in the region. The nine that are completely within the district are Hudson, Bergen, Essex, Union (in New Jersey), and the five boroughs of New York City, which are coterminous with the counties of New York, Bronx, Kings, Queens, and Richmond. Abutting sections of Passaic, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, and Somerset in New Jersey, and Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland in New York are also within the district.[8]
The Ambrose leads from the sea to the Upper Bay, where it becomes the Anchorage Channel.[18] Connecting channels are the Bay Ridge, the Red Hook, the Buttermilk, the Claremont, the Port Jersey, the Kill Van Kull, the Newark Bay, the Port Newark, the Elizabeth, and the Arthur Kill. Anchorages are known as Stapleton, Bay Ridge and Gravesend.[19]
The natural depth of the harbor is about 17 feet (5 m), but it was deepened over the years, to a controlling depth of about 24 feet (7 m) in 1880.[20] By 1891, the Main Ship Channel was minimally 30 feet (9 m) deep. Following the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 over $1.2 million of initial funding was appropriated for the dredging of 40 ft (12.2 m)-deep channels at Bay Ridge, Red Hook, and Sandy Hook.[21] In 1914, Ambrose Channel became the main entrance to the port, at 40 feet (12 m) deep and 2,000 feet (600 m) wide. During World War II the main channel was dredged to 45 feet (14 m) deep to accommodate larger ships up to Panamax size.
In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers completed a $2.1 billion dredging project, deepening harbor channels to 50 feet (15 m) in order to accommodate Post-Panamax container vessels, which can pass through the widened Panama Canal as well as the Suez Canal.[22][23][24]
This has been a source of environmental concern along channels connecting the container facilities in Port Newark to the Atlantic. PCBs and other pollutants lay in a blanket just underneath the soil.[25] In June 2009 it was announced that 200,000 cubic yards of dredged PCBs would be "cleaned" and stored en masse at the site of the former Yankee Stadium and at Brooklyn Bridge Park.[26]
In many areas the sandy bottom has been excavated down to rock and now requires blasting. Dredging equipment then picks up the rock and disposes of it. At one point in 2005, there were 70 pieces of dredging equipment working to deepen channels, the largest fleet of dredging equipment anywhere in the world.[citation needed]
The channel of the Hudson is the Anchorage Channel and is approximately 50 feet deep in the midpoint of Upper Bay.[27] A project to replace two water mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island, which will eventually allowing for dredging of the channel to nearly 100 feet (30 m), was begun in April 2012.[28][29] The Army Corps has recommended that most channels in the port be maintained at 50 feet deep.[30] Dredging of the canals to 50 feet was completed in August 2016.[31][32]
The channels also include bridges that limit the heights of vessels that can use the harbor. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge has a clearance of 228 feet (69.5 m) at mean high water.[33] The Brooklyn Bridge has 135 feet (41.1 m) of clearance, while the Bayonne Bridge has been raised from 155 feet (47.2 m) to 215 feet (65.5 m).
The estuary was originally the territory of the Lenape, a seasonally migrational people who would relocate summer encampments along its shore and use its waterways for transport and fishing. Many of the tidalsalt marshes supported vast oyster banks that remained a major source of food for the region until the end of the 19th century, by which time contamination and landfilling had obliterated most of them.[34]
The first recorded European visit was that of Giovanni da Verrazzano, who anchored in The Narrows in 1524. For the next hundred years, the region was visited sporadically by ships on fishing trips and slave raids.[dubious – discuss]
The Port Authority maintains its own police force, as does the Waterfront Commission, created in 1953 to investigate, prosecute, and prevent criminal activity.[44]
The port is a port of entry. The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regulate international imports and passenger arrivals. The "green lane" program, in which trusted shippers have fewer containers inspected.[49] There are two foreign trade zones in the port: FTZ 1, the first in the nation, established in 1937, on the New York side of the port; and FTZ 49, on the New Jersey side.[50][51][52]
In March 2006, some of the passenger facilities management was to be transferred to Dubai Ports World.[53] There was considerable controversy over security and ownership by a foreign corporation, particularly one of Arab origin, of a U.S. port operation, despite the fact that the operator was British-based P&O Ports.[54] DP World later sold P&O's American operations to American International Group's asset management division, Global Investment Group, for an undisclosed sum.[55]
The airports in the Port of New York and New Jersey combine to create the largest airport system in the United States, the second in the world in terms of passenger traffic, and the first in the world in terms of total flight operations. JFK air freight cargo operations make it the busiest in the US. FedEx Express, the world's busiest cargo airline, uses Newark Liberty International Airport as its regional hub.
Container terminals
3km 2miles
4
3
2
1
Port of New York and New Jersey container terminals
In June 2010, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey agreed to purchase from Bayonne 128 acres (0.52 km2) of land at the Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne, indicating that additional container port facilities would be created.[61] The agency is expected to develop a terminal capable of handling the larger container ships to be in service once the new, wider Panama Canal opens in 2014, some of which would not have passed under the original Bayonne Bridge at the Kill van Kull.[62] A project to raise to the roadway of the bridge within the existing arch was completed in May, 2019.[63]
The terminal's combined volume makes it the largest on the East Coast,[64][65][66] the third busiest in the United States,[67] Handling a cargo volume in year 2023 of over 7.8 million TEUs,[68] benefitting post-Panamax from the expansion of the Panama Canal. As of 2023, the terminals experienced a more severe reduction in cargo volume compared to California seaports, resulting in the Port of Los Angeles reclaiming its position as the nation's busiest.
In May 2010, the Port Authority announced that it would purchase the Greenville Yard and build a new barge-to-rail facility there, as well as improve the existing railcar float system. The barge-to-rail facility is expected to handle an estimated 60,000 to 90,000 containers of solid waste per year from New York City, eliminating up to 360,000 trash truck trips a year. The authority's board authorized $118.1 million for the project.[77] The National Docks Secondary rail line is being upgraded in anticipation of expanded volumes.
In September 2014, the PANYNJ announced a $356 million capital project to upgrade and expand the facility, including Roll-on/roll-off operations. Expected to be operational about July 2016, an initial capacity of at least 125,000 cargo container lifts a year is projected.[78]
Port Inland Distribution Network
The Port Inland Distribution Network involves new or expanded transportation systems for redistribution by barge and rail for the shipped goods and containers that are delivered at area ports in an effort to curtail the use of trucks and their burden on the environment, traffic, and highway systems. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), and Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), are involved in initiatives to review and develop this network.[79][80][81] To instantiate PIDN, the PANYNJ signed an agreement November 29, 2003 with the Port of Albany to provide twice weekly barge service. By 2014, the service had been discontinued.[82]
America's Marine Highway is a similar United States Department of Transportation initiative to capitalize on U.S. waterways for the transport of goods.[84][85] In 2016, MARAD made a grant of $1.6 million to improve the terminal at Red Hook as part of the Marine Highway program.[86] Barges carrying containers on a route between Red Hook and Newark began operation in September 2016.[87]
The golden age of the North Atlanticocean liner lasted from the end of the 19th century to the post–World War II period, after which innovations in air travel became commercially viable. Many berths for the great ships that lined the North River (Hudson River) were more or less abandoned by the 1970s.
From 1924 until 1986, sewerage sludge was hauled by tugboat and barge to a point 12 miles (19 km) offshore in the Atlantic. From 1986 to 1992 it was dumped at a site 106 nautical miles from Atlantic City, after which ocean dumping was banned.[111][112][113]
In 2010, 4,811 ships entered the harbor carrying over 32.2 million metric tons of cargo valued at over $175 billion.[117]
In 2010, the New York-New Jersey Port industry supported:[118]
170,770 direct jobs
279,200 total jobs in the NY-NJ region
Nearly $11.6 billion in personal income
Over $37.1 billion in business income
Almost $5.2 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues
Local and State Tax Revenue: $1.6 billion
Federal Tax Revenue: $3.6 billion
Approximately 3.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of containers and 700,000 automobiles are handled per year.[119] In the first half of 2014, the port handled 1,583,449 containers, a 35,000-container increase above the six-month record set in 2012,[71] while the port handled a monthly record of 306,805 containers in October 2014.[120] In 2014, the port handled 3,342,286 containers and 393,931 automobiles.[121]
In January through June 2015, the top 10 imports that went through the port of New York and New Jersey were:[122]
Petroleum: $6.78 billion
Appliances: $3.80 billion
Vehicles: $2.59 billion
Plastics: $1.72 billion
Electronics: $1.46 billion
Chemicals: $1.45 billion
Oils and perfumes: $928.7 million
Pharmaceuticals: $897.5 million
Optical and photographic: $801.8 million
Pearls and precious gems and metals: $562.4 million
^"U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones". Import Administration. International Trade Administration. January 13, 2013. Archived from the original on January 13, 2016. Retrieved 2013-01-20.
^Farberov, Snejana (June 16, 2013). "How Hurricane Sandy flooded New York back to its 17th century shape as it inundated 400 years of reclaimed land". The Daily Mail.
^Andrea Valentino, bbc How climate change …Archived 2022-01-27 at the Wayback Machine (Hidden from sight beneath the waves, the seabed around New York's harbour is littered with historic sunken vessels that met a variety of fates in the waters around the great city. Now they face a new threat to their existence from the changing climate.) bbc - future, 18th October 2021