^{Thumbnail courtesy of KFUG Station Manager Paul Critz.}

After meeting with city and county representatives on Monday, Interim Harbormaster Mike Rademaker says there’s more momentum toward the Harbor District operating the ice plant rather than transporting the ice from Brookings.

The Crescent City Harbor District is still working on establishing a containerized ice plant, but with the commercial Dungeness crab season set to start soon, getting the ice plant on Citizens Dock up and running is a faster option, Rademaker told Redwood Voice Community News on Tuesday.

“Lead time is at least 24 weeks,” he said, referring to the containerized ice plant option, which could cost about $1 million. “It’s not a viable solution for the upcoming crab season or tuna [fishery].”

But local leaders are still figuring out how to address environmental concerns associated with the ice plant itself as well as how much ice the local fishing fleet actually needs, according to Crescent City Manager Eric Wier.

That information must also be weighed against the  costs associated with transporting ice from Pacific Choice Seafood’s plant in Brookings to Crescent City as well as figuring out how to get it onto local fishing boats, Weir said.

“We had an initial meeting in which some more questions were asked, and we need to have the answers to those questions,” he said Thursday. “What are some of the options and what are the impacts? How does this affect fishermen in regards to crab season, which is basically upon us, versus other fishing seasons? We need to have some answers fairly quickly.”

Meanwhile, though fishermen are gearing up for the Dungeness crab season, which typically starts Dec. 1 in Del Norte County, unsafe levels of domoic acid in crab sampled in Northern California is concerning.

“Nobody knows the current situation as to when [the commercial season] is going to open,” said commercial fisherman Josh Mims. “That’s up in the air as of right now.”

Unsafe levels of the neurotoxin  prompted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to delay opening the recreational fishery between the Oregon state line and the Reading Rock State Marine Reserve in Humboldt County. The recreational crab season opens elsewhere in California on Saturday.

In an email Rademaker sent to community leaders and fishermen last week, he stated that the Harbor District had been in negotiations with Pacific Choice to transport ice from its plant in Brookings to Crescent City. He had asked fishermen to let him know what their anticipated ice needs would be as well as whether they wanted it flaked or cubed, saying that he  hoped to obtain the ice at a discount due to economies of scale. Rademaker said that information would also enable the Harbor District to figure out how to store the ice.

Rademaker had also proposed a special Harbor District meeting to gather public input on the ice plant situation, but later told Redwood Voice that a meeting would likely be scheduled after Election Day next week.

Pacific Choice Seafood ceased operating the Crescent City ice plant on Oct. 5 due to a lack of ice sales, increased costs in repairs and operational expenses as well as stricter regulatory requirements in California, according to Rademaker. 

The ice plant was designed for a larger fishing fleet, Rademaker said, and still uses anhydrous ammonia, which is cost effective but highly toxic. 

If the Crescent City Harbor District were to operate the ice plant, it would have to re-register the plant with CalEPA, Rademaker said. The Crescent City Harbor District would also have to create an emergency accident program, a hazardous materials business plan and a training and maintenance program.

“There is a ton of paperwork and some inspections and a little bit of maintenance to get this plant into compliance [with] the Harbor District as a new operator,” Rademaker said.

According to Rademaker, a representative with Condor Earth Environmental Consulting will inspect the ice plant and help the Harbor District develop compliance plans, safety plans, hazard assessment, a prevention program along with training and maintenance programs.

Rademaker estimated that it would be about $6,000 to $7,000 for Condor Earth to develop those plans. He said he also expects additional charges to register the Harbor District with CalEPA. The interim harbormaster noted that while the documents will likely be several pages, the Harbor District can borrow a lot from what Pacific Choice did.

“The first thing we need to do is work on compliance plans,” Rademaker said. “County Environmental Health will have to sign off on it and approve it and they report it to CalEPA.”

There’s also still a question over how much ice the fishing fleet needs. According to Rademaker, the ice plant at Citizens Dock can produce about 100 tons per day and can store 180 tons, which is more than is needed, though the fleet’s exact needs vary based on the fishery.

“It was a big topic of discussion yesterday on our conference call,” Rademaker said Tuesday. “Some people were saying 10 tons per day and other people were saying more like 30 tons. So that was the impetus for sending out email soliciting feedback from the fishing fleet.”


For Mims, having the local ice plant operational again is a better option than transporting the ice from Brookings. Trucking the ice in means fishermen will have to shovel it onto the boats themselves, he said. There’s fuel and maintenance costs and winter road conditions to contend with as well, Mims pointed out.

The local ice plant has a pneumatic machine that can pump ice right into a vessel’s fish hold, he said.

Crescent City Mayor Blake Inscore, who participated in Monday’s meeting, said there needed to be a clear path forward on how the Harbor District can operate the plant before the city commits to getting involved. He also noted that there are regulatory hurdles the Harbor District needs to overcome with CalEPA.

“We got to have fact finding,” he said. “The last thing we need to do is to put this out publicly and then find out that it’s a waste of time.”