Still, the issue had received little attention from the Whitman Administration or anyone else until it appeared on the agenda of a TPA committee meeting, the same week this journal profiled the developing situation (MTR 144). On Wednesday, Freeholders who sit on the TPA and representatives of Newark, Morris County, Hunterdon County, Jersey City, the State Assembly Transportation Committee and the Port Authority questioned the wisdom of the city's decision to not aggressively investigate a MOTBY container port's economic and transportation potentials.

Frank McDonough of the NJ Dept. of Commerce asked how NJ was preparing for big growth in containerized trade. How will it accommodate big new cargo ships that will not easily negotiate the channels leading to Ports Newark and Elizabeth? While one plan is to blast the bottom of the Arthur Kill to a greater depth, Captain William Sherwood, a harbor pilot, said no amount of explosives would enable the next generation of ships to pass under the Bayonne Bridge.

Kiczek fought back, questioning the viability of a MOTBY container terminal. He defended the emerging plan for mixed use development, but challenged anyone to submit a container port proposal with a firm financial plan and job creation numbers to the Reuse Commission.

Global Terminals, a big NJ port operator, angrily retorted that just such a proposal it had proffered had gone unanswered.

Kiczek also downplayed the significance of the Bayonne Reuse Commission's Oct. 30 vote on the fate of MOTBY, saying the resulting Master Plan was "not immutable" and that Bayonne would remain open to the idea of port uses of the facility.

Therese Langer of the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic took issue with the assertion that the Commission's pending action would preserve flexibility regarding the base's future, but also called on the TPA to investigate ways in which a container port could be made a more attractive option to Bayonne. The meeting ended with a resolution directing TPA staff to draft comments reflecting the TPA concerns.

This new-found attention to the issue is welcome. Without an integrated strategy to rationalize and modernize the harbor complex and develop a rail freight network that works for the entire region, our future will be awash in trucks and worse traffic congestion. MOTBY could be a key to a cooperative NY/NJ approach to the problem, by permitting New Jersey to consider more than just a self-defeating defensive posture regarding Ports Newark and Elizabeth.