on the cover / By HSU Investigative Reporting students

Meltdown

The fact that the county had to scramble to find a substitute for Eureka Ice is surprising, considering that the building had been falling apart for years. By the time the county and U.S. EPA shut it down, the roof was so dilapidated that the ice that had built up over the years was supporting the structure. When the public agencies ordered Eureka Ice to remove the anhydrous ammonia, the ice melted and the roof collapsed.

If you had visited Eureka Ice six months ago, this is what you would have found: An empty, taped-off parking lot around a building that looked like it could come crashing down any minute. Where the walls met the foundation, they were cracked and seemed to bulge out. In the back a dilapidated construction trailer had a barely legible sign that read Eureka Ice & Cold Storage Office. The building looked to have been vacant for many years, though it had only been closed for a few months. The plant was demolished on Feb. 28.

“It was a complete dump,” said fisherman Bob Repair. He used to store his bait at Eureka Ice. Now he does most of his fishing out of Crescent City, so he stores his fish there.

Steve Modine has been a bartender at Steve and Dave’s, a waterfront bar in Old Town. Modine didn’t need the newspapers to tell him what was going on at Eureka Ice. He heard about it from the fishermen who come into the bar for coffee each morning. “Fishermen will always talk to you,” he said. “All the guys that went down there told me it was falling apart. The only thing holding it together was ice.”

Eureka City Engineer Kurt Gierlich said Pacific Choice Seafood Company is a different story. He called it a “first-class building.” The Eureka Ice House was “just an old building that hadn’t been maintained,” he said.

Managers at Pacific Choice were no more forthcoming about their business than the Hunter family was about Eureka Ice. They declined repeated requests for interviews. But health inspectors who visited the Pacific Choice plant over the years have given it a clean bill of health. And when you visit Pacific Choice’s building the difference is visible. There, at least, the pipes are clearly labeled. They read: “Danger: Anhydrous Ammonia.” And inside the restroom, the toilet sparkles.

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