Obsolete facilities at the Port of West Sacramento are being demolished to make way for port modernization projects. Photos courtesy of Port of West Sacramento General Manager Rick Toft

WEST SACRAMENTO, CA (MPG) - Throughout its history, the Port of West Sacramento has served the agricultural, natural resources and construction sectors in Northern California. The port is currently undergoing modernization efforts. The first phase of modernization is demolition and clean-up of obsolete warehouse and conveyor facilities.

The warehouse and conveyor systems currently being demolished were constructed from the mid-1960s to 1980 and were used for woodchip exports and fertilizer imports. The port stopped handling woodchips in 2005 and fertilizer in 2008 due to competition from other ports and changing international trade supply/demand factors. Today, the port’s primary cargos are rice (exports) and cement (imports).

The obsolete warehouse and conveyor facilities being demolished at the Port of West Sacramento were used to support woodchip and fertilizer imports.

Demolition of these obsolete facilities will open up a 15-acre footprint for new facilities including paved lay-down yard areas, new EV charging infrastructure and a new rice storage warehouse.

These new facilities will be planned together with the port's terminal operator, SSA Pacific, and will be constructed as funding and market opportunities allow. There is no timeline for the construction of new facilities at this time.

The demolished port facilities will make room for modern facilities needed to support the ports primary cargo of rice and cement.

In the meantime, the port continues to invest in maintenance of its primary cargo handling facilities to ensure uninterrupted operation of its rice and cement business.

The Sacramento-Yolo Port District was formed under the California Harbors and Navigation Code Section 6800 et seq. in 1947 to operate the Port of Sacramento (name changed to Port of West Sacramento in 2008), a deep-water port which opened for commerce in 1963. The port is located 79 nautical miles from San Francisco with direct access to Suisun Bay provided via the 40-mile Deep Water Ship Channel, which is maintained at a depth of 30 feet by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.