Bill aims to give crab industry $138 million in disaster relief

Reps. Jared Huffman and Jackie Speier speak at a news conference Friday in Fisherman’s Wharf to announce the introduction of a bill that would provide disaster relief to the crabbing industry. Reps. Jared Huffman and Jackie Speier speak at a news conference Friday in Fisherman’s Wharf to announce the introduction of a bill that would provide disaster relief to the crabbing industry. Photo: Kimberly Veklerov / / Photo: Kimberly Veklerov / / Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close Bill aims to give crab industry $138 million in disaster relief 1 / 18 Back to Gallery

California commercial crab fishermen, many struggling to keep their businesses afloat amid an unprecedented season closure caused by a toxic algae bloom, could see more than $130 million in disaster relief under a last-ditch federal proposal to bail them out of financial doom.

Bay Area Reps. Jackie Speier and Jared Huffman introduced the legislation this week, more than three months after commercial crabbing was shuttered by state officials due to dangerous levels of a neurotoxin found in Dungeness and rock crabs caught along the coastline from Santa Barbara County to Oregon.

“We are here today, as you can tell, surrounded by fishermen who aren’t working,” Speier, D-Hillsborough, said at a news conference Friday outside Scoma’s Restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf. “To lose that money, to lose that income, is devastating.”

Speier’s office estimated that commercial crab fishermen have lost $68 million this season, while related businesses, such as restaurants that depend on selling the seafood delicacy to diners, are down about $70 million.

Recreational crabbing

Last month, the California Department of Public Health green lighted recreational Dungeness crab fishing near San Francisco, Half Moon Bay and Monterey — but commercial crabbing remains dead in the water.

The bill proposed by Speier and Huffman — the Crab Emergency Disaster Assistance Act of 2016 — seeks to appropriate about $138 million in disaster funds to fishermen and small businesses, including restaurants, that were banking on the commercial season. Sen. Barbara Boxer is expected to introduce its companion bill on Monday.

On top of disaster assistance, the legislation would include $1 million for sampling and monitoring of the neurotoxin, domoic acid, which is produced from marine algae blooms. Another $5 million would go toward grants administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for research on the biotoxin and the growing blooms from which it sprouts.

But it may take quite a bit of time before anyone sees the money.

Funds from the legislation are contingent upon a disaster declaration by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, whose office declined to comment Friday on the possibility, and a potentially lengthy appropriations process in the House and Senate.

“This is a Congress that doesn’t do a heckuva lot,” Huffman, D-San Rafael, said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

Forced to get loans

John Barnett, 50, a fisherman who has caught crabs commercially for 10 years, had to take out loans from his retirement account to do engine work on his boat, The Amigo. But he counts himself among the lucky ones in his hard-hit industry. Fishermen who watched the news conference at the pier said they know crabbers who had to mortgage their homes to make ends meet.

“We’re just waiting,” Barnett said. “We want to go out and fish. No one wants a handout.”

Crustacean fishing for many is the most lucrative time of year. Many of those in California’s $90 million crabbing industry also took a hit last year with a blighted salmon season, and another one may be around the corner.

Fisherman Jim Anderson, 64, who sits on the state Dungeness Crab Task Force, said about 95 percent of his income depends on crabbing. The disaster assistance, he emphasized, would “make us whole — it’s not asking for a windfall.”

Harmful algal bloom

The crisis in fisheries and on dinner tables originated in a massive harmful algal bloom that contains an algae named Pseudo-nitzschia. The diatom produces domoic acid, which passes up the food chain and can wreak permanent brain damage on consumers — be they sea lions or humans — an illness called amnesic shellfish poisoning.

Years before the closure of fisheries, Sausalito’s Marine Mammal Center was dealing with the biotoxin in pinnipeds.

Toxin cases on rise

The domoic acid cases appear to be on the rise, according to Dr. Cara Field, a veterinarian at the center. In previous years, the algal blooms spiked in the summer and autumn, she said, but it persisted year-round in 2015, leading to an intake of about 235 patients, some of which “don’t remember where to go to be a normal sea lion,” Field said.

Cessation of commercial crabbing cast newfound scrutiny on the rise of harmful algal blooms, which have largely stumped marine scientists. Doctors like Field are hopeful research funds from the bill could help close the knowledge gap.

In the meantime, commercial fishermen are cautiously awaiting a possible go-ahead from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, despite the best part of the season, which begins in November and lasts until June, having come and gone.

Jacky Douglas, 87, who captains the Wacky Jacky and takes people salmon fishing, lamented the closure of crab fisheries.

“It’s their livelihood we’re talking about,” she said. “We’re all part of the ocean brotherhood.”

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov