By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters] – On Tuesday, the number of container vessels waiting for entry at America’s busiest seaport reached a record 84. The growing crowd of empty containers piled up and crowded docks at Southern California facility which has been working hard to eliminate lingering imports.

This is the dilemma faced by an American government task force that was charged with combating supply chain snarls which are leading to product shortages as well as inflation.

Since the pandemic, U.S. ports were inundated by cargo. This is because Americans have shifted their spending from entertainment such as travel to more physical goods. COVID-19 made it easier to maintain goods moving smoothly. Despite the fact that many older truck drivers have retired before their time, there are still some workers needed to keep goods flowing.

Gene Seroka, the Port of Los Angeles’ executive director said that there are currently 65,000 unfilled containers at the docks. This is an 18% increase over a few weeks ago. He said that “sweeper” ships were inbound to transport some of the boxes to Asian factories.

Seroka stated that import containers have dropped 25% at Los Angeles ports to 71,000, since Oct. 24, Seroka reported.

Truckers and railroads have been moving containers from Los Angeles to Long Beach docks. This has prompted executives to postpone imposing an additional fee for imports that exceed their allowed time by one week, to Nov. 22.

Imports that are destined to be trucked off would face a new charge after ninety days. Rail-bound cargo would pay the same fee after six days. Ocean carriers would be charged escalating fees by ports for exceeding the container’s storage time. There will be a $100 fee for the first, $200 for each subsequent day and so forth.

Containers intended for truck delivery to local areas stayed on docks for less than four days before the epidemic, while those for train deliveries remained on the docks for more than two days.

AP Moller Maersk and other ocean carriers said that they would pass on additional import fees to them. Consumers could end up paying the higher costs.