3. Port Governance and Infrastructure

The San Mateo County Harbor District, formed in 1933, runs Pillar Point Harbor. The District is governed by a five-member Board of Harbor Commissioners, who are elected County-wide for staggered four-year terms (Source). The harbor was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1961. Funding for the harbor was originally intended for Redwood City, however, due to lobbying by residents, an outer breakwater was instead built at Pillar Point to provide refuge for the fishing fleet. In the 1970s, the harbor’s inner breakwater, public fishing pier, Johnson Pier, docks and berths were added. Pillar Point is considered one of the safest harbors in the U.S. due to the combination of inner and outer breakwaters. The public fishing pier is located on the inner breakwater (Source). Pillar Point Harbor offers 369 berths, a boat launch, ice facilities, a guest dock, a boatyard, cold storage, fish cleaning stations, six hoists, and storage. In 1977, the San Mateo County Harbor District took over the operation of Oyster Point Marina in the City of South San Francisco, a 600-berth recreational boating marina. The Half Moon Bay Yacht Club is also located in Princeton at Pillar Point Harbor.

In addition to serving the commercial fishing fleet, Pillar Point Harbor has many attractions and amenities to support the local tourist economy. Marine tourist excursion opportunities are available at Pillar Point including stand-up paddle-boarding, kayaking, surfing (the harbor hosts a yearly surf competition), whale watching and charter fishing trips (Source). The harbor also hosts restaurants, bars, hotels and retail shopping (Source). The San Mateo County Harbor District supports the Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries, a group of fishers that advocates for the heritage and economic value of fishing to California coastal communities. The Alliance works with representatives at the following harbors: Pillar Point, Port San Luis, Morro Bay, Santa Cruz, Moss Landing, and Monterey (Source).

3.1 Commercial Seafood Handling Infrastructure

A variety of commercial fish businesses receive, and in some cases, process the catch landed at Half Moon Bay by commercial fishers (Table 1). These include businesses that lease and operate the fish receiving stations located at Pillar Point Harbor, other local and non-local businesses that receive the unloaded catch from these receiving station operators, and some fishers who handle their own (and in some cases others’) catch. In 2021, 117 distinct fish businesses received catch at the port including 34 fish business licensees with a mail, street, or plant address of Half Moon Bay or Princeton (Table 1). Fish businesses in Half Moon Bay/Princeton included commercial fishers licensed to receive and sell their catch, and several smaller locally owned receivers that also had retail storefronts and/or restaurants.

Like most ports along the California coast, commercial fish businesses in Half Moon Bay have fluctuated, but risen slightly since 2000 (31), with 34 businesses in 2021 (Figure 2). Over the same period, the number of fishermen’s retail licenses has declined (Figure 2). The processing sector did see some contraction through the 2000s, in large part due to the 2000 groundfish disaster and subsequent (2003) coastwide federal trawl buyback program (Table 2). With the decline in the year-round, high-volume groundfish fishery and increased dependence on the seasonal Dungeness crab fishery, receiving and processing businesses struggled to stay afloat. As a relative proportion, the port has lost more fish receiver licenses than multifunction fish business licenses (defined in the table above) since the early 2000s. This trend reflects a shift towards vertical integration––the combination in one company of two or more stages of production normally operated by separate companies––which accompanied the dominance of large firms in the seafood sector. Since the mid-1990s, the salmon fishery has been on the decline, though with some variability and higher production years. Although there was an overall net loss in fishermen’s retail licenses since 2002, the number of fishermen’s retail licenses also fluctuated from year to year during that period. These fluctuations, and net loss, may in part be due to the fluctuations and closures in the salmon fishery, which is a popular direct-to-consumer marketing species.

Figure 2:  Fish Business Licenses held locally, by type, in Half Moon Bay, 1993-2021

Table 2: Timeline of selected events affecting Half Moon Bay’s primary fisheries.