3. Port Governance and Infrastructure

The Moss Landing Harbor District was established in 1947, as a landing site for commercial fisheries and as a much-needed fuel dock along the central coast. The Moss Landing Harbor District operates under the direct authority of the state and is governed by a Harbor Commission of five members elected by residents. The district is divided into the North Harbor, which serves recreational boating and visitor activities and the South Harbor which offers support services for commercial and sport fishing and marine research.

Moss Landing Harbor has 600 berths, including 350 for fishing boats, 30 for research vessels, and others for charters, tour and pleasure boats. Many commercial slips have gone unused as the fishing fleet decreased in size. Fishing services at Moss Landing include the Harbor, a tackle shop, a fuel dock, a boatyard with a haul-out, a marine electrician, a marine diesel mechanic, a marine upholstery store, a metal welder, and ice facility, a launch, and three hoists.

3.1 Commercial Seafood Handling Infrastructure

A variety of commercial fish businesses receive, and in some cases, process the catch landed at Moss Landing by commercial fishers (Table 1). These include businesses that lease and operate the fish receiving stations located in the 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, 51 fish businesses received catch at the port. Nine fish business licenses had a mail, street, or plant address of Moss Landing (Table 1). Those based in Moss Landing 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 Moss Landing have slowly declined, from 22 in 1998 to 9 in 2021 (Figure 2). The contraction of the processing sector is 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, receiving and processing businesses struggled to stay afloat. Fish business licenses hit a low point in 2008 (7) fluctuating somewhat after but ultimately only increasing slightly to 9 in 2021. This could be attributed to a period of decline in the market squid fishery in the late 2010s, which eventually rebounded. The salmon fishery also saw declines and was declared a statewide disaster in 2008, 2009 and 2015-2018. From a peak in 1998 (10) the port has lost all fishermen’s retail license (defined in the table above). This loss mirrors an overall reduction in fishing licenses affiliated with the port (discussed in section 4.2.1). This 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 by type in Moss Landing, 1993-2021

Table 2: Timeline of selected events affecting Moss Landing’s primary fisheries.