Shippers Hope Bill Ends Rail Shutdown : Agriculture: Some companies fear big losses if the work stoppage continues into the weekend.

Faced with a potential multimillion-dollar loss in business, Ventura County agricultural officials said Thursday that they are counting on emergency legislation approved by Congress to end a national railroad shutdown today.

“We are cautiously optimistic that we will be able to begin shipping again,” said Bob Smith, assistant manager of transportation for Sunkist Growers Inc.

Smith said Sunkist, which operates 16 packinghouses in the county, would stand to lose as much as $20 million statewide if the two-day shutdown were to stretch through the weekend. He said the company’s Ventura County operations alone could lose as much as $8 million.

“Ventura County is very important to us because of its large orange and lemon production,” Smith said.

Sunkist moves about 25% of its goods by rail. With increased competition for refrigerated trucks and soaring delivery rates, finding enough available tractor-trailer rigs would be nearly impossible, Smith said.

“It’s a struggle,” he said. “There’s already a shortage of trucks.”

But Smith and other agricultural officials said they are counting on emergency legislation approved by Congress late Thursday that imposes a back-to-work cooling-off period on the rail industry and submits the stubborn dispute to arbitration.

Smith said Sunkist already has 150,000 to 200,000 cartons of produce stranded on rail cars idled in locations from California to New York.

Meanwhile, other produce shippers in the county said that while they have so far gone unscathed by the rail shutdown, they are sure to feel the impact if it is not resolved quickly.

“If this continues, other shippers will be snatching up trucks,” said John Pavich, sales manager at Boskovich Farms in Oxnard. “And business will be down for everything because we can’t get wheels . . . to haul it.”

Pavich said his company moves only about 5% of its vegetables--including celery, lettuce and parsley--by rail and the rest by truck. But like Sunkist, Pavich said he is worried about the availability of truck transportation given the increased demand.

“If we can’t ship our vegetables, the market will crash,” he said. Today “will tell the tale.”

Ross Wileman, an official with Mission Produce in Oxnard, said his company ships avocados by truck but that it also could be hurt if the strike continues.

“The longer it goes the more impact it will have on us,” Wileman said. “Some of our buyers are already prioritizing what they will haul.”

For now, though, Wileman said his company is in better shape than most because a large portion of its crop remains unpicked.

“Avocados will hold two more months on the tree,” he said. “So we may just back off on our picking schedule.”

The rail shutdown has so far had little impact on Port of Hueneme, which is served primarily by trucks, said William Buenger, deputy executive director of the Oxnard Harbor District’s Port of Hueneme.

Mazda Motors of America is the only company at the port that uses rail, with trains delivering cars to dealerships throughout Southern California, Buenger said.

Mazda spokesman Bob Marsocci said the company had not been affected by the rail strike because many dealerships have well-stocked inventories.

“We don’t expect any immediate impact--in the short term,” he said.

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