Port of L.A.'s dredging project to be completed in 2013

The idea is to make the port deep enough for a new generation of larger ships that would be able to get through a long-awaited expansion of the Panama Canal. They're going at it 24/7, reports Neon Tommy. Several East Coast ports are gunning to expand in the hopes of diverting traffic from L.A.

David Arsenault, vice president of Hyundai Merchant Marine, a Korean shipping giant, which has eight weekly calls at the LA-Long Beach port complex, said Los Angeles' dredging project is "absolutely critical" to the port. But the canal expansion will still have an impact, he said, especially because an all-water route to the East Coast would cost less. "I think it's going to force West Coast ports to have to compete to hold on to what they got," he said. "The West Coast is going to be playing defense."

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But as companies move to larger ships in order to shave costs by making fewer runs with more cargo, the industry is not unanimous that bigger is better, said Marc Levinson, author of The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. "While there may be economies of scale at sea, it's not clear that there are economies of scale on land," Levinson said. "So many people are concerned that once these very big ships get into port, it's going to result in a lot of congestion and delays, and the ports are not going to be able to handle vessels at these sizes."