From the AP via Yahoo News:
The FDA advised people not to eat raw oysters harvested in a particular area of Washington state, citing bacterial illnesses that have sickened at least six people.My ex and his family raise oysters and clams on the banks of southern Hood Canal. When the tide is out, oyster beds look surreal, with their shells attached to the rocks and stones forming a haphazard tapestry of irregular shapes and edges. I took tons of pics at the time but can't find any — this photo above is a view of the canal and the Olympic Mountains from his property.
The state Department of Health closed the area associated with the vibriosis illness, the southern tip of the Hood Canal, and has asked commercial harvesters and dealers who obtained oysters from this area to recall them. Consumers who have recently purchased oysters should check with the place of purchase and ask if the oysters were harvested from the affected area. Symptoms of vibriosis, caused by the vibrio parahaemolyticus bacteria, include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, headache, fever and chills and usually appear within 24 hours after eating the oysters. Severe disease is rare and occurs mostly in people with compromised immune systems.
To avoid the illness, consumers should make sure the oysters are cooked at 145 degrees to kill the bacteria.
Hood Canal, which I think is more like a fjord, is shaped like a squeezed boomerang. Why it is called a canal I don't know. Its "left arm" is the first waterway off of the Straight of Juan De Fuca before it turns into Puget Sound and the "right arm" of the canal, where my ex's property is, isn't connected to anything. You can't take a boat in one end and exit the other which is how I would define a canal, but what do I know?
The right arm has been dying for years and that hasn't been corrected with strict building limits. With no real circulation of the water except the tide, sewage and community runoff isn't "flushed" to the ocean and it's screwing up the water's pH and making it uninhabitable for most wildlife. And, by the sounds of things, could have something to do with oyster contamination.
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2 comments:
There are lots of red tide alerts out here all the time.
There are days when I think that the geniuses in government look for a place where shellfish grow specifically to put the sewage outfall pipe there.
For my money, though, the most surreal shellfish is the geoduck.
Fucking gooeyduck! I actually ate one without knowing it! i ordered fried clam strips and realized what it was half way through. I had to stop eating. No one believed me when I described it to them. Then there was an episode of Dirty Jobs where he digs them out of the muck and I could prove it. Ugh.
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