news story / By Heidi Walters

New Wave

Short-sea shipping’s on the horizon, and Stephen Pepper wants to tug it in

(Nov. 20, 2008)  As visions of cruise ships bearing moneybags tourists danced through people’s heads at last Friday’s harbor commission meeting — delighting a few, perhaps, but apparently provoking headaches in most — one young man sat quietly in the back row of the audience with a different vision occupying his brain.

The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District Commission was discussing the final business plan for developing the Redwood Marine Terminal, that currently dilapidated expanse on the bay side of the Samoa Peninsula whose fate has been handed to the harbor district. The plan — by consultants TranSystems — would have the district seek $40 million to build a multipurpose berth that could handle everything from commercial cargo shipping to the aforesaid cruisers, plus various non-cargo endeavors. And it would expand over time. The commissioners job this night was to vote on whether to proceed with an environmental review of the first phase.

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Several scoffed at the cruise ship dream, and Eureka’s questionable allure to cruisegoers en route to more fancy destinations. Others called for proof that enough business exists to support large-scale commercial shipping. And then came a ray of light: Commissioner Hunter noted that one of the suggested uses of the multipurpose berth was short-sea shipping — the movement of goods short distances across water, as opposed to transiting the ocean.

“This probably excited me more than anything I read in this plan,” Hunter said.

If one knew anything about the young man sitting in the back row — Stephen Pepper — one might have imagined a sharper glint in his eye upon Hunter’s declaration.

Pepper didn’t talk at the meeting. But, in an interview earlier that day, he said he hoped to go before the commission soon with his own proposal for economic revival on the bay. Yes, short-sea shipping. And not as a medium- to long-term option, as TranSystems would have it, but as something that could happen right now.

Pepper, a tall, blue-eyed, down-to-earth-seeming guy, is a Humboldt State grad. He moved up from Southern California in 1995 to get his degree in oceanography. “I fell in love with the area, fell in love with my wife, got a dog and a house and kids,” he said.

He’s worked on boats since he was a kid — got his tugboat captain’s license in 1999 and worked for years for Brusco Tug & Barge out of Eureka and on tugboats out of San Francisco. Over the years, he said, he’s pondered the possibilities of the bay. And, watching the downturn in the economy, he decided short-sea shipping was something that could thrive in good times and in bad.

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