AT THE PORT: DUBIOUS NUMBERS, DUBIOUS CLAIMS FROM EDDIE AND THE SUNSHINE BOYS

By Juan Montoya
If we are to believe the statements attributed to Port of Brownsville executive director Eddie Campirano and his PR man Manny Ortiz, the Navigation District has caught fire and we have now reached a decade high import of cargo volumes under their able watch.
"The Port of Brownsville enjoyed its best year in terms of cargo volume moving through the port," the Brownsville Herald reported in a front-page lead story Thursday. He went on to tell the Herald's reporter who dutifully regurgitated the info to us gullible readers, that the port "moved more than 6.1 million metric tons in 2011 – a 16 percent increase over 2010."In fact, Campirano waxed a few paragraphs further in the article, "Brownsville is one of the top three U.S. steel ports only behind Houston and New Orleans."
Heady stuff, isn't it?
But something didn't sound quite right to some longtime port observers.
Since 2008, the port has been trying to regain ground against a worldwide recession that saw steel cargoes – and other related imports – plunge to all-time lows. In fact, 2008 is seen as the banner year for ports along the Gulf Coast.
The Port of Brownsville, for example, reported to the Texas Port Authority that in that year, 6,300,000 metric tons of cargo moved through its wharves and docks. Now, we're feeble minded with numbers sometimes, but it does seem that the 6.3 million metric tons reported in 2008 when compared with the 6.1 million metric tons for 211 still has us lagging behind the cargoes moving though the Golden Ditch a scant three years ago, never mind, a whole decade. In fact, the port's audit for 2010 by Long & Chilton reported that "revenues from vessel services related to cargo traffic were...down 17 percent."
A 16 percent increase in cargoes in 2011 would mean we're still not quite up to 2008 levels. wouldn't it?
But don't take our word for it, check it out yourself.
On Page A-4, the numbers reported by the Authority, and provided by the Port of Brownsville clearly shows this.
ftp://ftp.dot.state.tx.us/pub/txdot-info/library/reports/gov/tpp/tpa_report10.pdf
Campirano is one of 7 members of the The Texas Port Authority Advisory Committee
appointed by the Texas Transportation Commission. The purpose of the committee is to provide a forum for the exchange of information between the commission, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and committee members representing the port industry in Texas and others who have an interest in ports.
So, if anybody should know that the claims made in the newspaper were dubious at best, it would have to be Eddie.
We asked about the apparent inconsistency and got back a colorful graph in return that seemingly supported the port's claims. But there was nary a word about the numbers provided by Campirano and the port administration to the Texas Port Authority that would seem to challenge their credibility with the current claims. In the interest of fairness, we print that graph (it's mighty pretty, Manny) here.

OK. So what gives?
Did the port lie to the Texas Port Authority, or is the administration lying to us?
Not content to fudge the cargo numbers, Eddie went on to compare Brownsville to (gasp) the ports of New Orleans and Houston.
Now, if we in 2011 handled 6.1 million metric tons in 2011, let's see how we stack up against New Orleans.
According to its website, the "Port of New Orleans handles about 62 million short tons of cargo a year. The port also handles about 50,000 barges and 700,000 cruise passengers per year with several ships from Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian cruise lines making it one of the nation's premier cruise ports."
So let's be merciful and just skip the comparison with the Port of Houston, shall we?
Then we hear Eddie repeat the growing chant that manufacturers have grown disillusioned with China and are now returning to the Western Hemisphere to set up shop. The examples are at best inconsequential. There's an auto plant here, an electronics maquila there. But if we are to believe the cheerleaders at the port, "Mexico is the new China," and Brownsville is poised to pluck the benefits of this new trend.
Somebody better tell the Mexican Maquila Association and its chambers of commerce that they are enjoying the winter of discontent with China by worldwide manufacturers. Except for a few anecdotal examples, this just ain't so. Delphi moved out of Mexico this past year to build huge plants in rural China, as did a host of other manufacturers from the U.S. and other countries and continue to do so. That's not going to change in the foreseeable future, Eddie's wishes notwithstanding. But we can dream, though, can't we?
Oh, there's more.
"I heard a term the other day" Campirano expounded against a backdrop of former port commissioners in the port board 's meeting room: "'We are now the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.'"
Now, we have nothing against thinking big when it comes to the future of our port. In fact, we're all for it to progress out of its Middle Age thinking that left us effectively out of the containerized cargo market for decades as past port board members with interest in commercial fishing struggled to save their shrimping investments and kept us in the backwaters of world commerce.
Let's just say that after some lean years (three, to be exact), the port is finally getting back to its 2008 levels of cargo and that we hope we sustain this trend. We have four years to make this up. What Campirano and Ortiz are really saying is that the movement of cargo through the port is directly affected by the global economy and that – being situated on the border with emerging economies like Mexico and Latin America – our economic fortunes are directly tied to the vagaries of those economic dynamics.
It doesn't matter that Campirano – at $175,000 – goes to China and spends $1,800 on a single meal in Shanghai with two other commissioner one day, then comes back the next day and spends another $1,600 on another single meal – this time with the two commissioner and Brownsville Economic Development Corporations guru Jason Hilts as a guest.
That and other junkets under the guise of seeking business by the marketing directors, commissioners and their flunkies to all points of the world really didn't help to spur this increase of cargoes at the port. The upswing in the in the Mexican economy – tied as it is to the recovering global economy – did.
With any luck, 2012 will be the year that the port finally come out of its economic doldrums and – regardless who's at the helm – might become the economic engine it has the potential of becoming to provide opportunity to local communities and give people work.
For the meantime, take it easy on the superlatives and just get the job done, please.