Pacific Choice Seafood is expected to cease operating the ice plant in Crescent City on Saturday, according to Interim Harbormaster Mike Rademaker. | Photo by Paul Critz

City, county and Harbor District officials are joining a representative of the local fishing community to find a solution for the commercial fleet’s ice needs.

Pacific Choice Seafoods is expected to stop operating the ice plant at the end of Citizens Dock as of Saturday, Interim Harbormaster Mike Rademaker told Redwood Voice Community News on Wednesday.

A mobile ice plant may be a feasible option long term since it doesn’t need much in the way of permitting to establish at the port, said Josh Mims, whose Community Food Council’s Sea-to-Market Project brought local seafood into Del Norte schools. The concern now, however, is ensuring there’s an ice supply available for the Dungeness crab season, which typically opens Dec. 1 on the North Coast.

“For us, a lot of our crab gets sold to live buyers — they buy live crab off the dock,” Mims said. “And when they do that, they ice the crab down so they go dormant and don’t tear the arms off each other. We get paid more for those crab than for whole cooked crab. It can range from 25 cents to an extra dollar per pound, which adds up really fast.”

Mims and Rademaker have been working with county supervisors Chris Howard and Dean Wilson as well as Assistant County Administrative Officer Randy Hooper, Crescent City Manager Eric Wier and Mayor Blake Inscore.

At Tuesday’s Harbor District meeting, Rademaker told commissioners that a Pacific Choice Seafood representative told him it wasn’t economically feasible to continue to operate the plant. The plant’s too big for the size of the fleet, Rademaker said.

The goal in reaching out to city and county officials as well as State Sen. Mike McGuire is to present a united front and emphasize how critical a source of ice is to the fleet.

“Some of the commercial fishermen told me we could lose 30 percent of our fleet if we don’t have an ice plant that’s functioning,” Rademaker said. “It’s a daunting challenge, but it’s very sobering to think about the potential consequences.”

Rademaker said a meeting he had scheduled with McGuire for Friday was postponed until November due to the state senator’s “election-related commitments.”

Frank Ormonde, owner of Frank’s Heating & Refrigeration, said he built the ice plant for Del Norte Ice in 1986. Del Norte Ice sold it in 1998 and took it back eight or 10 years after that and then sold it to Pacific Choice Seafood, according to Ormonde.

The commercial fishing fleet regularly lands a record amount of seafood at Citizens Dock. In 2022-23, fishermen brought $24.5 million pounds of product to Crescent City, Mims told Redwood Voice. This includes tuna and sable fish as well as Dungeness crab. There’s a small rockfish fleet that does well too, he said.

Mims said he’s been working with North Star Ice, a Seattle-based company, to bring a containerized ice plant to Crescent City. This mobile ice plant could be installed without the need for a building permit or a Coastal Development Permit, Mims said. And it could be moved around the harbor while Citizens Dock and the seawall are rebuilt.

“They understand our dilemma and are very excited,” Mims said. “Hopefully, the harbor owns and operates it. That would be ideal in my opinion.”

On Sept. 26, North Star Ice sent bids to the Harbor District for two units costing a total of about $1.4 million. According to Rademaker, the price for the unit depends on the size the Harbor District gets. He said it would make about 30 to 50 tons of ice per day.

There may be grant opportunities for the Harbor District to obtain another source of ice as well. On Tuesday, Rademaker said a Coastal Conservancy Business Development grant could be a possibility.

A similar plant was installed at Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, Rademaker said.

Mims said he’s been speaking with local U.S. Department of Agriculture representative Reef Atwell-Smith about a $50,000 infrastructure grant that would enable the Harbor District to do repairs on the current ice plant if it takes over the operation from Pacific Choice.

“We’re still playing with how we’re going to keep it open,” Mims told Redwood Voice. “Realistically, even if we find the funds to purchase a [mobile] unit, getting it into town and going through the setup, we’re looking at 18 months probably. Just to file a grant and get it approved usually takes a year. That’s why we’re focusing on keeping this plant open and operating through crab season.”

For Wier and Howard, the potential loss of ice at the Crescent City Harbor hit their radar about a week ago. According to Howard, the concern was that the fleet would move to other ports within 12 months if they didn’t have a source of ice. He said he had spoken with Rademaker to find out how the county and city could best help the Harbor District.

Howard said he and Hooper have also been communicating with Atwell-Smith at the USDA.

“At this point, my hope was to get this on a future Board agenda so we can give direction to staff to work on this as an economic development priority,” Howard said.

Wier said the city would also be impacted by the ice plant’s closure and wanted to be involved in finding a solution. Wier told Redwood Voice on Wednesday that he reached out to Pacific Choice Seafood, but had not heard back.

Wier said one way the city could help is by looking for grants to either keep the plant going or to purchase the containerized ice plant. This includes U.S. Economic Development Administration grants or Community Development Block Grant dollars because of the connection with job creation and retention, Wier said.

“If all agencies are working together and all agencies identify this as a critical need to a disadvantaged community we’ll have a strong application to get that money,” he said. “The support of our fishermen and our fishing fleet and just the understanding of how it’s not just the harbor — this absolutely has significant ripple effects throughout the city and the entire county.”