KUOW China has suspended imports of shellfish from the west coast of the United States — an unprecedented move that cuts off a $270 million Northwest industry from its biggest export market.
China said it decided to impose the ban after recent shipments of geoduck clams from Northwest waters were found by its own government inspectors to have high levels of arsenic and a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.
The restriction took effect last week and China’s government says it will continue indefinitely. It applies to clams, oysters and all other two-shelled bivalves harvested from the waters of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Northern California. U.S. officials think the contaminated clams were harvested in Washington or Alaska. Right now they’re waiting to hear back from Chinese officials for more details that will help them identify the exact source.
State and federal agencies oversee inspection and certification to prevent the shipment of tainted shellfish. Jerry Borchert of the Washington Department of Health said he’s never encountered such a ban based on the Chinese government’s assertion that these U.S. safeguards failed to screen out contaminated seafood.
“They’ve never done anything like that, where they would not allow shellfish from this entire area based on potentially two areas or maybe just one area. We don’t really know yet,” Borchert said.
The biggest blow could fall to those who farm or harvest the supersized geoduck clams. In the Northwest, they’re concentrated in Washington’s Puget Sound, where about 5 million pounds of wild geoduck are harvested each year. Aquaculture accounts for an additional 2 million pounds, according to estimates from the Washington Department of Natural Resources.
A barricade around the Chinese consumer market means trouble for those in the Northwest who rely on Asian trade.
“It’s had an incredible impact,” said George Hill, the geoduck harvest coordinator for Puget Sound’s Suquamish Tribe. “A couple thousand divers out of work right now.”
The U.S. exported $68 million worth of geoduck clams in 2012 — most of which came from Puget Sound. Nearly 90 percent of that geoduck went to China.
Geoduck are highly prized in China, where the clams sell for retail prices of $100 to $150 per pound. Although geoduck are harvested year round, demand peaks during the holiday season leading up to the Chinese celebration of the lunar new year — which falls on Jan. 31 for 2014.
The geoduck (pronounced “GOO-ee-duck”) is a the world’s largest burrowing clam. It’s slow-growing, regularly reaching 100 years old and often weighing as much as 10 pounds.
Harvesters are waiting for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to negotiate with the Chinese government to come to an agreement on how to move forward and reopen shellfish trade. NOAA stopped issuing certification for shellfish exports last Friday.
Officials say the investigation is ongoing but the closure could last for months. While the industry awaits a resolution at the international level, it is adjusting to the new reality.
The Suquamish Tribe is trying to develop other markets in New York, California and locally at seafood markets in Seattle, Hill said.
Bill Dewey, a spokesman for the largest shellfish supplier in Washington said his company, Taylor Shellfish, is looking at other solutions.
“I was just talking to our geoduck manager and he’s got two harvest crews and three beach crews essentially doing makework,” Dewey said. “He’s too nice a guy to lay them off during the holidays but there’s only so much you can be charitable about making work for people and eventually you’re going to have to lay them off.”
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http://kuow.org/post/china-imposes-first-ever-west-coast-shellfish-ban
RADIATION! If your going to tell us a story, tells us the REAL story!!…
I know, really! WTF!?? Just tell us the TRUTH!!! Stop BS-ing!!
I agree with the radiation present in everything on the west coast. If they are going to try to market them to the fools in Seattle, I seriously doubt that they will fetch more than $4 to $5 a pound, unlike the really stupid Chinese paying $100 to $150 a pound. As for me and mine, we have put a boycott on anything from the Pacific or the Gulf. Take your pick, oil or radiation, we are all being lied to again.
I have taken all sea food out of my diet. I don’t even take krill oil, or cod liver oil anymore. i also consume alpha lipoic acid , and iodine as a radiation flush thanks to one of you brothers out there that told me about it. i buy nothing from the west coast, and haven’t for a good while now.
The West Coast is living on borrowed time. When this is fully exposed, the fishing, agriculture, beef/poultry, dairy, wine, tourism, housing, etc. industries will start to crumble. The govt. and the media can’t hide all of the dead sea creatures & birds showing up, nor can they hide the mountains of Fuku debris headed this way. I know someone working on CA’s high speed train project. It is not supposed to be completed for something like 20 years. I can’t help but wonder what CA will be like then. Will the train just transport people from one dying city to another?
“Harvesters are waiting for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to negotiate with the Chinese government to come to an agreement on how to move forward and reopen shellfish trade. NOAA stopped issuing certification for shellfish exports last Friday.
“I was just talking to our geoduck manager and he’s got two harvest crews and three beach crews essentially doing makework,” Dewey said. “He’s too nice a guy to lay them off during the holidays but there’s only so much you can be charitable about making work for people and eventually you’re going to have to lay them off.””
Yes, so let’s all just blame the Chinese government like the government wants us to do, since they have so much to do with the radiation levels and contamination being so high. Yea, that’ll help. NOT!
Instead, how about we blame our foreign government and MSM, which is covering up the lies of Fukushima and the radiation and get everyone together to help clean up the Fukushima mess and stop it from spreading! DUH!
But noooo….we’d rather just deal with the small problems like this one and negotiate a way out of it and to pretend that it’s all ok, rather than fix the root of the problem or finding out where it started in the first place.
The Chinese government can kiss my ass, but let’s be real here, if you’re gonna blame someone for your problems, at least place the blame where it lies, rather than beating around the bush. China’s just a scapegoat here. Of course, their government is no angel either in not saying anything about Fukushima, so they are just as complicit in it all as well. But you know what I mean.
People under 50 should not eat Pacific seafood in 2014.
hey I’m 69 and i don’t eat it.
I cut all seafood out of my life right when the gulf oil spill happened. Man, and sometimes it’s hard to say no to some good steak and shrimp dinners, but I do. Thank God, that all of my storage food is all pre-fukushima
Instead of the opium wars, we now have the shellfish wars.
The US trying to cram illicit products down others throats like us.
I know GB forced -drugged China but whats the difference.
As if the shellfish in their waters are any less radioactive than ours.
Idiots.
Hahaha! True. Absolutely true.
Actually, when I was in China, I was teaching with a science teacher who did Hazmat for the military and dealt with toxic chemicals and polluted water in Kuwait and Iraq. He told me that he could analyze what chemicals were in the water in the U.S. and even in the Middle East, but when it came to China, he didn’t know WHAT THE HELL was in the water. He always told me, “Most of the water in China is so polluted that there is stuff in that water that there isn’t even a scientific name for”. It’s that bad.
Granted high in the mountain areas, the water is pure, believe it or not, but down below in the river, valleys, and ocean, who the hell knows what’s in that water. It’s worse than swimming in raw sewage and I actually swam in what was basically raw sewage when I was in Northeastern Taiwan in Keelung. Not a very pretty sight. Ever pick up a deteriorated laundry basket out of the water with your leg in the middle of swimming? I did! lol
Took a long time to get the smell off of me, too. This was all BEFORE I found out that it was basically a raw sewage area, even though hundreds of people were swimming in that area as though it were normal.
Gross, dude.
🙂
Hahaha! Yep, I gotta say my time in Asia was quite the adventure.
That’s it for me tonight, NC. Need some sleep. This damn cold’s kicking my @ss.
The Japan Current goes to Alaska and down the coast to Mexico then to China. It hasn’t gotten there yet. Sometime in 2014 the loop will be closed.