Last week the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach enacted an emergency fee for containers lingering too long at terminals. Now that impact is being felt as almost 60,000 containers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have officially started to rack up charges and face a daily $100 penalty per container, increasing in $100 increments per day.

This new port fee goes for any cargoes designated for movement by truck that remain on the Terminal more than eight days after discharge, as well as any cargoes designated for movement by rail that remain on the Terminal more than five days after discharge. Experts warn that the biggest loser in this penalty, will be the consumer.

One of the main issues are the empty container storage and returns, with around 30% of all containers sitting at the terminals to be empty containers. To put it in perspective, a total of 350,000 empty containers are loaded per month. To help alleviate this, sweeper vessels are being deployed to both ports to help load and move out the empty containers at the ports to a specific destination at the expense of the shipping lines.

The Port of Long Beach along with Union Pacific and Utah Inland Port have recently established a partnership to move mountain region-bound containers by on-dock rail. The hope is this will help push out cargo faster and improve the backlog of issues currently taking place.

With all of the new criteria and fees taking place, it really is all hands-on deck with everyone in the supply chain industry continuing to step up in these extraordinary times.