Photo by Paul Critz
Crescent City Harbor commissioners are still committed to securing a long-term source of ice at the port, but they decided that seafood processors will be on their own when this year’s commercial Dungeness season starts.
While ice is a concern for the commercial fishing fleet, it’s mostly the seafood processors who rely on it, Commissioner Rick Shepherd told his colleagues on Dec. 3.
A new set of commissioners last week directed Interim Harbormaster Mike Rademaker to focus on securing funding from the National Seafood Strategy Implementation Plan, a NOAA Fisheries program. The Harbor District would use those grant dollars to entice more seafood processors, particularly those focusing on shrimp, to set up shop at the harbor.
Shepherd said he learned of the program about a week prior to the Harbor District’s Dec. 3 meeting and it’s “right up our alley.”
“There’s no payback there — it’s just straight to the harbor,” he said, referring to the grant funding. “We’re going to try to get every penny we can and we’re going to move forward with processing in Crescent City.”
Commissioners also learned that Community System Solutions has submitted an application on behalf of the Crescent City Harbor District for an EPA Climate Change Grant. This $20 million grant would be used to revitalize the boatyard, create a workforce opportunity training program and establish a containerized ice plant plus an energy storage system for that plant and a potential fish filet facility.
Community System Solutions CEO Mike Bahr said his firm was seeking $2.5 million in that EPA grant for a new source of ice for the commercial fleet.
According to Bahr, the Biden Administration is making $2 billion in EPA dollars available in that grant. The grant award will be announced in January.
Following Bahr’s presentation, Commissioners rejected a more immediate idea — a proposal to spend up to $22,000 on two used freezer containers.
Rademaker had initially proposed requesting American Rescue Plan Act grant dollars via District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard. However, on Monday, Rademaker told Redwood Voice Community News that he learned from Howard that the money had already been allocated. There’s still a budget line item in the county for economic development, however, Rademaker said.
“Supervisor Howard mentioned that he is actively exploring promising projects throughout the county, including initiatives at the harbor, to address the void left by the dissolution of the Tri-Agency Economic Development Authority,” Rademaker said via text.
On Dec. 3, Shepherd, the longest-serving commissioner on the Harbor District Board and a long-time commercial fisherman, argued that CCHD couldn’t afford to spend money on freezers that would be used for one crab season. He proposed letting seafood processors and fishermen fend for themselves this season.
Some have already made their own arrangements to get ice from Brookings and bring it back to Crescent City, Shepherd said.
“I’ve talked to many of them. They say, ‘We don’t like the idea, but we totally understand the fact that you aren’t responsible for us not having ice,’” Shepherd told his colleagues. “If it was us that took the ice away, I would feel so responsible that I would suggest something else. But at this point in time, we got stuck with the concept that we were supposed to take care of the ice for the fish companies and the fishermen, and it’s really not our responsibility at this point in time.”
Rademaker has been working with city and county officials and representatives of the local fishing fleet to find another source of ice since Pacific Seafood ceased operating the plant at the end of Citizens Dock on Oct. 5.
One potential was to have the Crescent City Harbor District take over operating the plant. However, that was dashed when Pacific Seafood representatives, a month after it stopped Crescent City operations, decided to remove the equipment.
Another possibility was to truck ice from the company’s plant in Brookings to Crescent City. Rademaker suggested that Harbor District staff could help distribute and store the ice, which is where the proposal to purchase used freezer containers came from.
Shepherd said the freezer containers would likely be able to be used for one season. The commercial fishing fleet does need ice, but it’s the seafood processors who primarily rely on it to keep live crab dormant for the trip to markets in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Shepherd said.
When newcomer to the CCHD Board John Evans asked if the freezers could be repurposed, Rademaker said some fishermen have indicated using them to store bait. But, the Harbor District likely wouldn’t need two of them, Rademaker added.
Shepherd, referring to a strategic development action plan he and his former colleagues had been discussing prior to the November election, said there’s a more “state-of-the-art” option in that plan for cold storage.
“These are so dinosaur, it takes a tremendous amount of power, and they’re losers,” he said. “It’s going to cost you money, or the person who is putting bait in those freezers and paying for it is going to [spend] a lot of money.”
Commercial fisherman Josh Mims noted that the fishing fleet does get an extra 25 cents to $1 per pound for live crab. This is especially valuable toward the end of the season, he said, and may be why buyers are working on a temporary solution to the ice dilemma on their own.
“They want to see the fleet get a little bit of extra money,” he said. “Especially when they get down to scratch, when guys are only getting 500, 600, 700 [crab] a day, that extra 50 cents goes a long way.”
Pacific Seafood, which is based in Clackamas, Ore. and operates nearly 40 facilities nationwide, cited declining ice sales in Crescent City and onerous state regulations when they stopped operating the ice plant two months ago.
At the Harbor District’s Nov. 19 meeting, Rademaker said that Pacific Seafood had only sold 1,300 tons of ice from the Crescent City plant last year, generating about $200,000 in sales. However, with electricity costs ranging between $6,000 and $7,000 a month, EPA violations that can cost more than $100,000 to rectify, according to Rademaker, and staff salaries, the company’s expenses at the Crescent City plant were roughly 10 times what they were taking in.
However, Mims said Pacific Seafood put fishermen in a tough spot when they decided to take the plant’s equipment. And when the Dungeness crab season does start in Northern California — which likely won’t be until at least Dec. 31 — it’ll be Pacific Seafood spearheading price negotiations since they control most of the market, he said.
“They pretty much put out a price and everybody’s got to match that,” Mims told Redwood Voice Community News last week.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that the commercial crab season will remain closed until at least Dec. 31 due to entanglement risks to humpback whales, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Friday.
Meanwhile, Rademaker told commissioners on Dec. 3 that he’s spoken with several shrimp processors who might be interested in setting up shop in Crescent City, though they didn’t want to be publicly identified at this point.
“I think in closed session, when we get closer to the negotiation stage, we can talk about who those companies are and what sorts of inducements they’ve been asking for,” Rademaker said.
The interim harbormaster mentioned previous grants the port has received — including two Port Infrastructure Development Program grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration — that are making CCHD attractive to investors.
“We’re talking about very large companies,” Rademaker told commissioners. “They have a large portfolio around the world and some have even talked about building some ice capacity themselves as part of their own processing. It’s in the early stages, but stay tuned.”
