At the Port of Oakland, California, on a recent weekday, trucks, cranes and container-laden ships moved goods across the sprawling 1,300-acre complex with the precarious precision of a Rube Goldberg machine.
Mere blocks from downtown Oakland, the port operates essentially as a city within a city. It’s the ninth biggest port in the country and the first stop for 99% percent of containerized goods moving through Northern California.
In the whir of logistics and machinery, it’s easy to forget that everything happening here is made possible by one unsung, unglamorous and Sisyphean task: hauling mud from San Francisco Bay.
