The Port of Sacramento, now known as the Port of West Sacramento, is an inland port in West Sacramento, California in the Sacramento metropolitan area. It is 79nmi northeast of San Francisco, and is centered in the California Central Valley, one of the richest agricultural regions in the world.HistoryConstruction of the Port of Sacramento was first approved by Congress under the Rivers and Harbors Act of July 24, 1946. This act approved the construction of the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel, a 30 feet deep, 43 mile long shipping channel from Suisun Bay to an inland harbor at Washington Lake. The project started construction 3 years later in 1949 and the port was opened to deep sea traffic in 1963.OperationsSince July 1, 2013 the port and its operations are being leased by SSA Marine from the Port of Sacramento for a minimum of 5 years for a minimum annual payment of $650,000. This move by the port is intended to allow it to shift focus on developing its other available real estate assets, and further the growth of the port. It also transfers all liabilities and operational expenses to SSA Marine.CargoThe Port of Sacramento does not receive the high volume of ships that other California ports handle. This is mainly because the Port of Sacramento is a “Non-Container” port. The majority of all shipping worldwide is done by container ships and the fact that the Port of Sacramento is not set up to handle this type of cargo cuts it out of a large percentage of port traffic. The Port of Sacramento’s cargo is mainly of the agricultural, industrial and heavy equipment type, and the port specializes in bulk cargo. This works out well for the port because of its location in a dense agricultural region. Some of the ports’ main cargo is the exportation of local agriculture such as rice, barley, wheat, almonds and corn along with other local products such as lumber, cement, clay and metals. The Port of Sacramento is also set up to handle heavy machinery such as wind turbines, steel, generators and transformers.
