Thumbnail photo by Paul Critz
Crescent City Harbor commissioners are expected to ask State Sen. Mike McGuire to support Del Norte and Humboldt counties’ commercial fishing fleets.
The Board of Commissioners on Tuesday will discuss sending a letter to McGuire, who represents the North Coast and is the highest-ranking member of the California State Senate.
Harbormaster Mike Rademaker said he expects commissioners to discuss the substance of the letter and then he intends to reach out to the Humboldt Bay Harbor District to coordinate on a joint message to the state senator.
“At this point, I’m unsure whether my Board will require the letter to be reviewed again or if they will authorize me to make adjustments within the parameters discussed at our meeting on Tuesday,” Rademaker told Redwood Voice Community News via text message on Monday.
The Crescent City Harbor Board will meet at 2 p.m. today at the Harbor District Office, 101 Citizens Dock Road. A copy of the agenda can be found here.
The proposed letter will go before the Crescent City Harbor Board about three months after Pacific Seafood ceased operating its ice plant on Citizens Dock. It also comes as local fishermen gear up for the commercial Dungeness season.
Fishermen between the Sonoma-Mendocino county line and the California-Oregon border will be able to drop their pots at 8:01 a.m. Jan. 12 and start bringing them in on Jan. 15, according to a Dec. 20 news release from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Fishermen in the region are under a 25-percent trap reduction order, according to the CDFW. This reduction order is expected to reduce entanglement risks for humpback whales, according to the news release.
Fishermen south of the Sonoma-Mendocino county line to the U.S.-Mexico border were able to pull their pots on Sunday, according to CDFW. They’re under a 50 percent trap reduction order with the goal being to decrease the amount of gear and vertical lines in the water, according to the news release.
According to Del Norte County fisherman Josh Mims, meat quality in local crab appears to be good and there are no domoic acid concerns. The trap reduction order will definitely be a hardship, however, he said.
Mims pointed out that fishermen who have a permit to drop 400 crab pots will only be allowed to use 300. He argued that there’s “no truthful justification” for the trap reduction order north of the Mendocino County line.
“It’s not sitting well with a lot of guys,” he said. “If you go out and get 10 pounds [of crab] to a pot and you got 400 pots, that’s 4,000 pounds of crab. And if you’re down to 300 pots, you’re down to 3,000 pounds. That really cuts into the bottomline.”
In its proposed letter to McGuire, the Harbor District mentions the closure of the Pacific Choice ice plant as well as the shuttering of its processing facility in Eureka. It notes the local fleet’s reliance on a source of ice in Crescent City as critical for keeping its catch fresh, especially live crab, which is destined for markets outside of the area.
The letter also points to stringent state regulations, increased operational costs and utility rates as reasons why Pacific Seafood and other processors have moved their operations to Oregon and Washington.
“Where once we had five robust processing plants in Crescent City Harbor alone, today there are none,” the proposed letter states. “The result is devastating: our region’s vessels must now travel 20 to 50 hours one-way to land their catch in more accommodating out-of-state ports.”
In its letter, CCHD is calling on McGuire to streamline the permitting process and reduce regulatory hurdles as well as provide tax credits, grants or low-interest loans to seafood processors.
The Harbor District is also asking McGuire to “address skyrocketing power, water and sewer rates.”
Since Pacific Seafood shuttered the ice plant in Crescent City on Oct. 5, Rademaker had been working with Mims and other local elected officials on a temporary source of ice for the commercial Dungeness fleet.
However on Dec. 3, the Harbor Board decided that, while it would continue to search for a long-term source of ice, that CCHD couldn’t afford to spend money on freezers that would be used for just one crab season.
At that meeting, Rick Shepherd, the longest-serving commissioner on the Board and a long-time commercial fisherman, said it’s the seafood processors who primarily need the ice. He proposed letting processors and fishermen fend for themselves this season, stating that some have already made their own arrangements for ice.
On Monday, Mims said that some boats will try to obtain ice from north of the Oregon border and some buyers of live crab have indicated that they will be making their own ice. However, the question of ice hasn’t been fully resolved, Mims said.
He also noted that despite the decision from Pacific Seafood to cease most of its operations in Northern California, some die-hard fishermen are committed to unloading in Crescent City. Still, Mims said, the fleet in Crescent City isn’t expected to be large this year.
“We still don’t know our price here yet,” Mims told Redwood Voice. “They’re getting between $5.50 and $6.25 [per pound] in Oregon now. If we could go with that $5 price, I bet everyone here would be ecstatic.”
Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab fishery opened on Dec. 16 from Cape Falcon to the California state line. Price at the docks in Oregon, as of Dec. 26, averaged $4.50 per pound, Portland’s KOIN Channel 6 reported.
