Posted on November 13, 2018
Two local fishermen’s associations are suing the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District for the district’s failure to maintenance dredge commercial fishing facilities, the disappearance of three quarters of a million dollars of marina tenant’s payments for dredging and numerous coastal permit violations by the district. On Oct. 19, the Times-Standard reported on the fishermen’s lawsuit (“Fishing groups sue harbor district,” Page A1). The harbor district’s responses to Mr. Philip Santos’ questions are a perfect example of why fishermen are suing the district.
The facts: The district is legally responsible to “encourage, protect and maintain … fishing industry facilities at Woodley Island Marina.” This includes dredging and dock maintenance. The dredging cycle for the marina is six to seven years, not seven to 12 years as recently stated. The marina was last dredged in 2006, not 2008 or 2012 or even sometime last week.
In 2012 the harbor district had collected $656,000 from marina tenants in order to pay for the next dredging cycle. In 2013 that money disappeared from its budget, so where was that dedicated money spent since there has been no dredging? Now upon hearing of this lawsuit, some money (or at least some numbers on paper) has miraculously appeared in district budget documents. The harbor district says “there are four different methods to look at the funds.” Please take a minute of your time to look into your wallet, checkbook or purse and tell me whether there are “four different methods to look at the funds” you may have.
The harbor district was served a “notice of violations” a year ago for a four-year violation of the coastal permit protecting fishermen’s operations at Woodley Island. Since the lawsuit, it is scrambling to replace infrastructure that it wouldn’t even acknowledge that was illegally removed. When asked by the city’s building department what it was doing, its response was “ that they were cleaning up leaves and repairing some fencing.” Actually, the district is trying to rebuild the gear storage facility which it illegally removed, evicting marina tenants and costing Woodley Island Marina $45,000 in rental income.
The district’s comment that “you cannot dredge if you do not get permits” goes right along with the statement that you cannot get permits to dredge if you never apply for them. It has waited over six years to start to apply for permits, all the while deluding itself that the suction dredge that they bought five years ago ( a cool million bucks) would somehow become legal to use even though the district knew it was illegal to use when it bought it. Now, the district is actually talking about selling this dredge at a financial loss.
As of 10 a.m., Oct. 20, 2018, the city of Eureka is paying $26.75 per cubic yard (double handling) for maintenance dredging at the Eureka Small Boat Basin, and along the waterfront, not $25, $45, or even $300 suggested by one harbor commissioner. One can only wonder why the harbor district has not acted on the easily permitted option which has been available to it since 2006. Is the district not dredging because it has no permits or because the money is gone?
Since 2012 the harbor district has become a “black hole” for the public’s comments and questions. At the same time that district commissioners boast of the transparency of district actions— and all the while publicly complaining about Freedom of Information Act request filings from the public trying to discover where the money went.
If that wasn’t enough, the harbor district is working full time to get the fishermen’s lawsuit thrown out of court on the grounds that local fishermen’s associations can’t represent fishermen against the harbor district. There’s strength in numbers and having been “promised” significantly higher moorage rates by district commissioners, no individual fisherman would stand a chance trying to rein in this agency alone.
Fishermen don’t sue people, they go fishing. But if they can’t get their boats in or out of their slips they can’t go anywhere.
Ken Bates is a career fisherman and advocate, working out of the Port of Eureka in 1974 and has worked with the Harbor District in three of their five-year Strategic Plan updates, as recent at 2011.
Source: Times Standard
