The State - News from May 26, 1988

In a victory for Half Moon Bay commercial fishermen, a San Francisco federal judge ordered that the battle between the Port of Oakland and the fishermen over dumping of silt off Half Moon Bay be fought in state court. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson ordered the current state court ban on the Port of Oakland’s dredge dumping at Half Moon Bay to remain in place. Attorneys for the Alameda County port have asked that the trial be moved from San Mateo County since the port is an outsider being sued by that county. The Port of Oakland has been searching for a spot to dump 500,000 cubic yards of dredge material as part of a project to deepen the Oakland estuary to open it to larger container ships. The port won approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to dump the mud 11 miles off Half Moon Bay, and appeals courts earlier approved the decision. But the fishermen complained bitterly that the action would ruin their fishing grounds.