Thumbnail photo: Former Fashion Blacksmith building at the Crescent City Harbor. | File photo by Gavin Van Alstine More than a year after he closed his doors, Fashion Blacksmith owner Ted Long said there were data gaps in a recent environmental assessment the Crescent City Harbor District had commissioned of the site. Long also questioned the need for a structural inspection of the boat yard building itself. He told commissioners on Sept. 24 that a 60-page report detailing the findings of a civil engineer he hired in 2022 was included as an exhibit in an arbitration that led to a settlement agreement between the two parties. “All of these exhibits from our arbitration are on file with BBK and Del Norte Superior Court,” Long said, referring to the Harbor District’s former legal counsel, Best, Best and Krieger. “They are in fact public record. In good faith and to save scarce dollars for the Harbor District, even if it’s grant money, and for immediate access to current Board members, I would be willing to share the three exhibits from Western Wood Structures exactly as they were filed in the arbitration record. This includes the full 60-page inspection report and the proposed repair plan with all the estimates.” Long convinced the Harbor District Board to delay the release of a request for proposals for a civil engineer to conduct the structural investigation of the boat yard building. They directed Mike Bahr, CEO of Community System Solutions, which oversees the Harbor District’s grant-funded projects, to review Western Wood Structures’ inspection report on Fashion Blacksmith. Bahr said he didn’t know the documents existed and would return to commissioners potentially with an amended request for proposals. The RFP could also apply to CCHD’s other waterfront properties such as the Chart Room and the former U.S. Coast Guard building, he said. In his report to the Harbor Board, Bahr stated that an engineers’ walk-through of the former Fashion Blacksmith building identified “multiple potential issues including structural damage of one of the support beams, aging of some of the cross beams and potential asbestos in the siding.” Bahr’s report recommended the Harbor District find a structural engineer who could do a more thorough inspection of the building and develop a plan for needed upgrades as well as cost estimates. As for the environmental assessment of the boat yard site, conducted by Eureka-based SHN in January and February, Bahr said it revealed three hazardous waste issues on the property and one hazardous waste issue in the water. According to a report Bahr submitted to the Board of Commissioners on Sept. 24, SHN found three stockpiles of used sandblasting media, which California considers to be hazardous waste. SHN also found elevated concentrations of copper and other metals near the seawall and dock adjacent to the boat yard, according to Bahr’s report. SHN will present a plan for removing the sandblasting media stockpiles to the Harbor District Board, along with a cost estimate, in about two weeks, Bahr said. He said it would be up to the California Water Quality Control Board to issue a plan concerning the sediment in the water. “We will be bringing back both things — a contract for disposal and a remediation plan, whatever that will be, on the water sediments,” Bahr told commissioners. “Once the soil piles are removed, SHN will have to come back and conduct another soils analysis test and then give you the finding that removing the piles cleaned up the problem.” Remediating the site is necessary for the harbor to find a tenant to provide the boat yard services Fashion Blacksmith stopped offering in June 2024. Long said his work at the port dates back to 1977. But after numerous attempts to get the Harbor District to honor a lease agreement from 2015 that included dredging the area around the site and making repairs to the building, Long sought assistance from the courts. He said he filed a government claim form giving the district 45 days to comply with its lease agreement or “make documented efforts to do so.” “In a mere five days we received a ‘love letter’ from BBK, essentially telling us to take a hike,” said Long, who told commissioners that he was outlining his history with CCHD for the benefit of the three newcomers on the Board. “This attitude of arrogance and defiance greatly increased over time… resulting in a two-year period of darkness where they retained two LA law firms and eight attorneys using every legal maneuver in their arsenal to destroy us both emotionally and financially. After a five-day arbitration, a three-member panel, including a former federal judge picked by the Harbor, ruled unanimously in our favor.” Under the settlement agreement between both parties, the Crescent City Harbor District is required to pay Fashion Blacksmith $2.6 million plus interest over a period of 10 years. According to a Harbor District press release from March 6, 2024, the settlement, plus 5% interest, is meant to compensate Fashion Blacksmith for its projected profits had it served out the remainder of its 12-year lease. Last week, Long said the settlement was a fraction of what his business and the harbor could have realized as a result of changes to the California Air Resources Board’s regulations aimed at curtailing emissions from tug boats, ferries and other harbor vessels. “The commercial harbor craft emissions regulation of 2022 has created a bonanza of work for (boat) yards,” he said, “re-powering all commercial vessels doing commerce in the State of California, not just California-registered vehicles.” In response to SHN’s assessment, Long highlighted five examples of the data gaps he noted. One has to do with the Harbor District operating a travel lift on property shared with Fashion Blacksmith. The lift served the district’s unregulated self-help boat yard and was connected with the Synchrolift dock. According to Long, the travel lift was decommissioned due to a lack of maintenance on the supporting pilings underneath the piers it sat on. “Unfortunately, as you sit here today, that travel lift is abandoned just outside your back window leaking hydraulic fuel on the ground,” he told commissioners. The second example had to do with a floating dock used from the 1980s to the early 2000s for spooling, marking and lubing trawl gear cables. That spooling shed is still in place near the Crescent Harbor Art Gallery, Long said. Long referred to a launch ramp people used to bring their vessels on shore so they could flush the engines and wash the bottoms. He also alleged that over the last several years the Harbor District has “dumped tote after tote holding thousands of pounds of fish carcasses and occasional dock scrapings over the bulkhead below the launch ramp.” Full totes were stored at the top of the launch ramp, Long said. “The docks were dismantled at the top of the ramp and the remaining debris from the docks and totes were pressure washed into the bay,” he said. The former Fashion Blacksmith owner also referred to a drain inlet on Starfish Way. SHN’s report has a photo of the outlet, but there is no picture of the inlet, Long said. “It seems researching the inlet source would have provided a more thorough investigation and filled data gaps,” he said. “All of the data gaps and activities noted above were well documented with numerous pictures and videos in our exhibits in Fashion’s arbitration with the harbor.” Bahr told the Board of Commissioners that the SHN report doesn’t apply blame for the hazardous waste concerns. Once the Water Quality Control Board determines how the Harbor District can remediate the hazardous materials concern in the water, Bahr said he’ll pursue grant funding to help pay for that.