Officials Aim to Boost Use, Jobs at Port of Hueneme : Shipping: Oxnard Harbor District hopes to acquire Navy land to increase ground operations and use of a wharf to add dock space.

More than 250 new jobs could be in the Port of Hueneme’s future as the port seeks to expand both to the north and to the south.

At its southern boundary, the port will acquire about one-fourth of a 33-acre former engineering laboratory in April, 1996, when the Navy gives up the land and relocates the lab.

Oxnard Harbor District officials plan to use the land to expand ground operations--a plan that could add 250 transportation and loading jobs to the port’s 1,700-employee force, said executive officer Bill Buenger.

Additional jobs would come from a proposed expansion to the north, he said. The harbor district is reopening talks with Navy officials on a proposal for joint use of a wharf owned by the Port Hueneme Naval Construction Battalion Center, directly north of the port.

Use of the wharf would mean room for more ships to dock at the tiny port and more shipping lines employing more longshoremen. The average ship docking at the Port of Hueneme employs about 50 local longshoremen per day.

“I’d like to get a ship in there once a week,” Buenger said, referring to the wharf. “The main sticking point is how frequently we would be able to use the port.”

Buenger said he is negotiating with several shipping lines to start up or expand their operations at the port, but declined to give further details.

“There is always need for another (berth),” Buenger said. “Right now it’s hard for us to add new customers without causing any of our current carriers hardship.”

Although the acquisition of the Navy lab will mean more jobs, Buenger said the deal will not allow expansion of the port’s sea-going operations.

For that, he said, the port needs room for more ships. Currently, the port is overcrowded and ships sometimes have to wait to dock at one of the port’s five berths.

Port spokesman Kam Quarles said having access to the additional berth at the Navy’s wharf and an adjacent 25 acres of storage space is crucial to enticing new carriers to the port.

“When I go out to talk to potential customers, I need a solid plan showing how much room they’ll have,” he said. “I have to show them I have a functioning wharf.”

Talks between the Navy and harbor district regarding the joint-use plan were suspended last fall while Navy officials waited for a federal base closure commission to determine the fate of the base and the wharf, which the Navy uses for cargo operations and housing active-duty vessels. Negotiations are resuming because the base was not on the closure list.

During the stall in talks, Navy spokeswoman Doris Lance said a committee of Navy port users has been meeting to determine when and how often the extra berth will be free for commercial use.

“That type of thing is very difficult to determine,” she said, “because we have so many different uses for it. The schedules vary so much.”

Meanwhile, port officials are preparing for next April, when the port will take over a portion of the Navy’s former lab site.

Shipping line operators said the port’s 75 acres do not provide enough room for trucks or allow for expansion of their operations to include container shipments. Containers are the 20- or 40-foot-long large metal storage facilities that are hooked up to truck cabs when transported. Currently, most of the commodities moving through the port are packed onto 3-by-3 1/2-foot pallets, which then must be loaded into trucks.

Cool Carriers USA President Gerald Fountain said the additional land from the lab site also would provide more space for refrigeration facilities. The extra room, he said, would allow Cool Carriers to import grapes and other fruit from Chile to the port, products that now go through ports in Los Angeles and San Diego.

“The expansion of operations at the port is good news for us and for Port Hueneme,” he said. “The more ships we have docking, the more people we employ.”