| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | February 25, 1850 |
| Headquarters | 660 Davis Street, San Francisco, CA 94111 |
| Employees | 4 permanent full-time staff, contractors |
| Annual budget | $2.5 million (2017-18) |
| Agency executive |
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| Website | http://www.bopc.ca.gov/ |
Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun is the California state agency responsible for licensing and regulating pilots within one of the largest harbors in the world and the tributary Sacramento River delta. It licenses and regulates up to 60 pilots of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association.[1] They are called "bar pilots" because they maneuver ships across a large and dangerous sand bar just outside the Golden Gate at the mouth of San Francisco Bay.
The Board of Commissioners was created in 1850 during the first session of the California State Legislature. Once an independent agency, the Board of Commissioners became a department of the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency in 2009 and currently is part of the California State Transportation Agency. Surcharges paid by shippers on pilotage fees finance the work of the Commission, making it completely self-supporting.