A potential agreement between the Crescent City Harbor District and Pacific Seafood to purchase ice in bulk from the company’s Brookings plant may provide a short-term solution for fishermen.
But there are still questions over how much ice the fleet needs over the next year, whether fishermen want it flaked or cubed and how it will get from Oregon to Crescent City, Interim Harbormaster Mike Rademaker told Redwood Voice Community News on Friday.
“That’s still to be determined,” he said, adding that it will be up to the Harbor District or, potentially, a cooperative group from the fishing community to work out transporting the ice. “I sent out another email soliciting the fishermen to anticipate what their needs would be over the next year in terms of ice. We’ll add it all up in a spreadsheet and get an idea of what the aggregate demand will be. It will help us negotiate a discounted rate and determine the right size for storage and transportation.”
There also are other challenges associated with that potential agreement, according to Josh Mims, a local commercial fisherman who’s been working to ensure there’s ice available for the upcoming Dungeness crab season.
“One is the storage of ice,” he said. “If that ice sits on a boat for more than four or five days it becomes rock hard and it’s not usable anymore. If we do set up some kind of transportation situation then we got to make sure we store it and handle it properly or it’ll be a waste of money.”
These issues, as well as efforts to bring a containerized ice plant to Crescent City, will be discussed among city, county and Harbor District officials and local fishermen in a stakeholders meeting on Monday. Supervisors Chris Howard and Valerie Starkey will attend, along with Crescent City Manager Eric Wier and Harbor Commissioner Rick Shepherd, Rademaker said.
A special meeting of the Harbor District Board of Commissioners will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday to get public input on efforts to secure a permanent supply of ice for Del Norte County fishermen, Rademaker said.
Pacific Choice Seafood stopped operating the ice plant at the end of Citizens Dock on Oct. 5. In an email to local government officials and other stakeholders on Tuesday, Rademaker said the Clackamas, Oregon-based company had been operating the plant on a month-to-month lease. Pacific Choice notified the Harbor District that it was terminating the lease due to the “‘prolonged lack of ice sales and the continuing increase in the cost of repairs and operational expenses,’” Rademaker said.
California’s “stringent regulatory requirements” compared to other states was also a factor in Pacific Choice’s decision to end operations in Crescent City. It’s still operating an ice plant in Brookings, however, according to Rademaker.
The Citizens Dock ice plant was designed for a larger fishing fleet that had a greater ice demand, Rademaker said. There are stricter regulations in California governing the use of anhydrous ammonia due to health and safety concerns. California regulators have begun encouraging the use of carbon dioxide as a refrigerant as well as hydrofluoroolefins, or HFOs — compounds composed of hydrogen, fluorine and carbon — according to Rademaker.
To meet the fishing fleet’s long-term ice needs, Mims has been working with the Harbor District to bring a containerized ice plant to Crescent City. On Sept. 26, North Star Ice, a Seattle-based company, sent bids for two units to the Harbor District amounting to about $1.4 million.
According to Rademaker, those units can produce between 20 and 50 tons of ice per day in all varieties. He said the Harbor District is exploring partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, including local tribes.
“Notably, we are considering a partnership with the Yurok Tribe, which is also facing challenges with ice production capacity,” Rademaker said in his email Tuesday. “Please note that these discussions are still in the preliminary stages and funding availability has not yet been confirmed.”
On Friday, Rademaker said he’s hopeful that a partnership with the Yurok Tribe will pan out, but tribal officials are still considering the arrangement.
Mims said he’s hoping that Monday’s meeting will allow for the delegation of tasks so there’s no duplication of work. Officials have also been in touch with Congressman Jared Huffman and State Sen. Mike McGuire’s offices, Mims said.
According to Mims, who started the Community Food Council’s Sea-to-Market program to introduce local seafood into Del Norte schools, the prospect of having no ice facilities is scary for fishermen. Bearing the cost of transporting ice from Brookings will also be challenging, he said.
For live crab buyers, obtaining truckloads of ice is easier than it is for the tuna fleet, but the ice still can’t sit too long, Mims said. He noted that blocks of ice could crush live crab being trucked out of the area.
“Our fishermen right now are barely hanging on by a thread as it is,” he said. “And to incur more costs, it’s going to be really hard to get them on board for that. A lot of guys are already on a waiting list up in Brookings Harbor. Guys are looking at getting out of town due to the fact that there’s nothing here to service the fleet.”
