Thursday, June 23, 2011 - 11:06
BY DEBORAH TRACY
The Daily World
The state Department of Health says mussels from the Grays Harbor area are unsafe to eat because of high levels of a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.
According to the department's website, all Grays Harbor is closed to the sport harvest of all species of clams, oysters, mussels and other marine invertebrates, such as the moon snail. At present, the closure does not apply to crabs or shrimp
.
Commercial oyster growers in Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay are sending lot by lot samples to the Department, which will test each lot before clearing it for sale, said Frank Cox of the Department of Health.
Mussels serve as a "canary in the coal mine" warning system that alerts officials to the possibility of a toxic bloom in the ocean waters that could affect other shellfish, said Cox, marine biotoxin coordinator for the state Health Department.
On Monday, mussels taken from a test site in Westport tested at a level more than three times the state's threshold for paralytic shellfish poisoning.
Plankton monitors off the shore near Grayland are also detecting the toxic plankton in marine waters, Cox said.
"Mussels are our early warning system because they pick up the toxin quicker than most other shellfish," he said.
The danger, according to Cox, is PSP levels can skyrocket quickly. Graphs of toxin levels in the past when toxin blooms have occurred reveal an almost vertical line in the rise of toxin levels. "Cell reproduction is very rapid and shellfish can go toxic very quickly," he said.
Sport harvesting of shellfish is prohibited on local beaches each year from April 1 to Oct. 31 because of the possibility of high PSP levels, a natural phenomenon.
The organism responsible for the poisoning is a naturally occurring plankton in the waters of the Northwest, Cox said.
There aren't a lot of areas where people can access mussels, but they should not consume mussels at this time.
