Trust Fund Will Assist Fishing Fleet

Fishermen and developers have agreed to create a $1.6-million trust fund to help San Pedro’s struggling fishing industry, apparently ending months of political dispute over how the harbor-area improvement money should be used.

Under direction from the state Coastal Commission, the coastal-aid funds are being exacted from developers to offset environmental damage expected from the $1.66-billion, 1,030-mile oil pipeline planned from Los Angeles Harbor to Midland, Tex.

Construction of the pipeline, approved by coastal commissioners last May, is expected to begin in April, according to a spokesman for the Long Beach-based Pacific Texas Pipeline Co. Meanwhile, Coastal Commission Director Peter Douglas said he expects to meet with his staff by Monday to consider formal approval of the trust fund, proposed after lengthy negotiations between the pipeline developers and representatives of San Pedro’s 27-vessel fishing fleet.

Unloading Facilities

Fishermen are seeking the funds to continue the operation of San Pedro canneries, improve the marketing of Southern California commercial and sport fish and offset rising insurance costs for fishermen and boats.

A competing plan--to use developer funds to pay for a new marine research facility for Santa Monica Bay--has been quietly dropped by Mayor Tom Bradley’s office. Deputy Mayor Tom Houston, who pressed for $2 million in funding last fall, said he is no longer seeking pipeline funds for a research laboratory, planned for San Pedro’s old Cabrillo Museum.

Instead, Houston said, the mayor’s office hopes to establish the research laboratory in the largely vacant, two-story museum by using city sewer funds. He and other city officials have thrown their full support behind the fishermen’s plan, bowing to the lobbying efforts of fishermen and harbor-area Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, Houston said.

In the wake of those efforts, Douglas sent city officials a letter last fall saying that the research lab may not comply with the primary intent of the funding--to offset damage to the harbor-area fishing industry.

“The fishermen and I wrestled around for a while, and they won,” Houston conceded. “(Now) we’re backing the fishermen’s proposal all the way. There’s a great need among the fishermen. We hope there won’t be any problem.”

In an interview Tuesday, Douglas said he has yet to review details of the grant, which fishermen hope will yield a continuing flow of interest income. But, he said, “what has been put together looks very promising. I’m encouraged by what’s been done.”

Iacono Comments

Frank Iacono, general manager of the San Pedro-based Fishermen’s Cooperative Assn., said the grant is sorely needed by a fishing fleet that has battled in recent years just to survive. He said fishermen remain unsure how much the trust fund would generate annually or when the money will become available.

But the funds, to be managed by the fishermen’s cooperative and local fishing unions, could help finance the operation of Star Kist Cannery No. 1, scheduled for closure at the end of March, and assist with a cost-reducing insurance pool, he said. Personal-injury insurance that once ran $700 a year for a fisherman now runs $5,000 to $10,000 a year for workers on some boats, Iacono said.

A portion of the funds also could be used to help promote the fishing industry, particularly as it expands its exporting efforts, and to pay for new equipment that may be needed at a fish-freezing and unloading facility on Terminal Island. Fishermen are now negotiating with the city’s Harbor Department to lease such a facility, he said.

“We haven’t got the money yet, but we’ve got the agreement,” Iacono said Tuesday. “That’s going to benefit the whole community--not just the fishermen, but everyone. We’re sure of that.”

Flores Strong Supporter

Most of the political support for the fishermen has come from Councilwoman Flores, who argued that a marine-research laboratory would do less to help fishermen than projects that could directly boost fishing revenues and reduce expenses.

Flores’ top aide, Bernie Evans, said he met with Houston about three weeks ago and persuaded the deputy mayor to stop pursuing the funds for marine research. Evans said the move represents an important effort by the city to bail out the embattled fishermen.

“This shows . . . the city is committed, in a concrete way, to helping this industry, which has had some very difficult times,” Evans said. “We cannot give up on this industry. We have to do everything we can to help this industry survive.”

Houston said he actually dropped his quest for the funds late last year after the situation developed into a political fight. At the time, critics suggested that Houston’s plan was at least partially motivated by Bradley’s flagging gubernatorial campaign, in which Santa Monica Bay pollution became a weapon for Gov. George Deukmejian.

Idea Called ‘Laughable’

In an interview Monday, Houston called the suggestion that he was trying to defuse Deukmejian’s campaign strategy “laughable.”

“It didn’t receive any (favorable) publicity . . . and it was opposed by the fishermen down there,” he said of his plan. “It had no positive benefits (in terms of) public relations.”

His hope now, Houston said, is to add the research lab to the lengthy, $2.3-billion list of city sewer projects that must be paid for by taxpayers in coming years. The city-funded Southern California Coastal Water Research Project would use the lab in its continuing study of offshore sewage pollution, he said.

The project will be relocated from its current home in an aging Long Beach warehouse, provided the city can scrape up the funding during budget sessions beginning in April, Houston said.

“The city’s obligation is to do something about pollution in Santa Monica Bay,” he said, citing a 1980 lawsuit settlement with the federal Environmental Protection Agency. “That’s what this institute would do. The $2 million or less (cost) . . . is a rather small capital project compared to the whole $2.3-billion sewer-improvement program.”