Bigger Ships . Since the late 1980's, changes in the shipping industry and in the nation's ports have led some public officials to take another look at the feasibility of developing a major new container port in Brooklyn. The first of these changes is the development of a new generation of very large containerships. As the volume of cargo carried along the world's sea lanes has grown, shipping companies have sought to improve productivity and reduce costs by increasing the size of their vessels. 1 Today, the newest containerships carry more than 6,000 TEUs.
Bigger ships require deeper berths and channels.
The largest ships in service early in the next century will require channel depths of more than 50 feet. This is at least ten feet deeper than the channels that take ships from Lower New York Bay into Port Newark-Elizabeth. Fifteen years ago, deepening the port's berths and channels to serve larger ships might not have been an especially daunting challenge. The federal authorization and permitting processes were erratic and time consuming, and the cost of dredging was substantial-especially in the Kill Van Kull, where deepening the channel requires not just dredging up mud and sand but cutting into bedrock. But in the end, there would have been little question about the technical or financial feasibility of the project.