Task force gets waterfront tour
John Driscoll
Times-Standard
11/20/2009
EUREKA -- Members of a Blue Ribbon Task Force toured key fishing businesses in Eureka and Trinidad Thursday to gain a perspective on how Marine Protected Areas could undercut an already shaky industry.
Three of eight task force members were joined by representatives of commercial and sport fishing groups, Eureka officials and environmental organizations, and given a run-down of local investments made in the industry and the heavy restrictions on fisheries in the area. The task force is a key component of the state's Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, which is charged with creating a network of coastal zones in which fishing and gathering is forbidden or restricted.
At the foot of C Street, City Manager David Tyson briefed the group on the city's multi-million dollar efforts to develop a fishermen's terminal and market there. With $2.4 million in recently approved federal stimulus funding, the city will be able to begin construction of a building for small seafood processors, with a cafe, loading docks and a fish market. The project has been 15 years in the making, and is intended to bring to the public a better understanding of the fishing business that has long been a part of North Coast culture.
”So the city has quite a bit of dollars in the commercial fishing industry,” Tyson said.
The North Coast is the last region to be visited by the initiative, which has drawn substantial controversy elsewhere, and has united concern locally that the local fishing economy can't withstand more restrictions. The eight-member task force will develop Marine Protected Area proposals and make recommendations to the state Fish and Game Commission.
About 100 commercial fishing boats call Eureka home, said Humboldt Fishermen's Marketing Association President Aaron Newman. Most of them focus on the winter Dungeness crab fishery, about 70 percent of which occurs in state waters within 3 miles. Bottom trawlers, shrimp boats, a black cod long line fleet, and hagfish boats are other important components in the industry, Newman said, as are an anchovy bait fishery and tuna boats that visit the bay for bait, fuel and supplies.
”We follow the fish,” Newman said, “and fish don't usually pay attention to boundaries.”
Both commercial and sport fishing is heavily restricted by often unruly North Coast marine weather, and by tight federal and state regulations. Tom Marking, a local sport fisherman, said that most salmon fishing, as well as rock fishing, is done within the state 3-mile zone, and that the bay is rich with California halibut, perch, smelt, sharks and clams. But weather and regulations prevent fishermen from accessing that abundance, he said.
”Our days of fishing are very, very minimal,” Marking said.
Humboldt Bay also grows between 50 and 70 percent of the oysters in California. Coast Seafoods Manager Greg Dale said that the bay is ideally positioned between more southern climates -- where shellfish growth is high but diseases are prevalent -- and northern climes, where growth is slow.
”This is a very productive area of the coast,” Dale said.
