We’ve said it a hundred times … By retrofitting existing container terminals with our patented high density mobile storage and retrieval system, only one-tenth of the acreage presently being used by container terminals would be required. That would allow the other nine-tenths to be released and used in other more practical ways. Real Estate developers would be stepping on each other’s toes for the opportunity to acquire, and pay handsome prices for, such valuable coastal properties.

Just this month, however, we’ve read announcements indicating that port authorities are moving in the exact opposite direction. Valuable tracts of land are being eyed by these officials with the intention of annexing these expensive properties in order to expand their conventionally-structured and primitive terminal operations.

• The North Carolina ports, for example, are already expanding operations and are preparing to purchase an additional 600-acre parcel on the Cape Fear River. Officials are hoping to increase operations by 2.5 million containers, or thereabouts, in the upcoming years. At most, after expending several hundred million dollars of the taxpayer’s money, throughput for the port’s terminals would be at about the 3.5 to 4 million TEU level, but that’s the volume our system would handle on less than 150 of the acres now being used by the port.

• Earlier this month, an executive of the Virginia Port Authority announced that the port’s ever-expanding operations could increase Virginia’s port capacity to a point where NY/NJ would be replaced as the leading port along the East Coast. Referring to the expansion at the Norfolk International Terminal and a giant terminal to be built at Craney Island, the executive stated that, “The Big Apple is on top, but Virginia is poised to take over the No. 1 position.” If Virginia hopes to exceed NY/NJ volumes in the coming years it will be necessary to hit the 6 to 7 million TEU mark, but if Virginia’s officials insist upon relying upon primitive methods of container terminal operations, the taxpayers will pay dearly.

In both of the above cases, instead of the port authorities going to the well again and dipping into taxpayers’ pockets, our firm could be paying all construction and operating costs, and the money obtained from the sale of the released acreage would be directed to the states’ treasuries. Furthermore, the cost-effective operations of our systems would make possible higher profit margins all along the maritime supply chain. Instead of being alternatives for vessels diverted from “the Big Apple”, both ports would then become highly profitable attractions and legitimate contenders to be No. 1 along the East Coast.

Let’s see now. Instead of paying billions of dollars to expand existing operations, acquire land, and engage in disputes with union and non-union workers, and environmentalists as well, wouldn’t it be easier to allow our firm to build and pay for a condensed, efficient, money-making, revolutionary terminal? No longer would the port community be faced with complaining neighbors, high overhead and declining profits. It would be an upbeat dream, all day, every day. Like an endless summer.