CDPH Updates Warning about Shellfish fron Humboldt and Del Norte Counties

December 9, 2015

California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Smith today updated the warning regarding certain seafood caught in Humboldt and Del Norte counties. All bivalve shellfish except razor clams have been removed from the current health advisories. Recent samples have shown that the levels of domoic acid have declined and are non-detectable in mussels from this region. Advisories continue to be in place for: 

1.    Consumers to avoid eating recreationally and commercially caught Dungeness and rock crabs caught in waters between the Oregon border and the southern Santa Barbara County line. This is due to the persistent dangerous levels of domoic acid in these species.

2.    Consumers to avoid eating razor clams from Humboldt or Del Norte counties. Razor clams can retain domoic acid for a long period of time and remain at dangerous levels for this toxin.

Domoic acid accumulation in seafood is a natural occurrence that is related to a 'bloom' of a particular single-celled plant. The conditions that support the growth of this plant are impossible to predict. CDPH will continue its efforts to collect a variety of samples from these areas to monitor the level of domoic acid in seafood.

Symptoms of domoic acid poisoning can occur within 30 minutes to 24 hours after eating toxic seafood. In mild cases, symptoms may include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, headache and dizziness. These symptoms disappear within several days. In severe cases, the victim may experience trouble breathing, confusion, disorientation, cardiovascular instability, seizures, excessive bronchial secretions, permanent loss of short-term memory (a condition known as Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning), coma, or death. There have been no reported illnesses associated with this event.

Good news and in time for the daylight low tides just before Christmas.  Too bad about the razor clams, this was a good year before the closure, and the even numbered years have a small and less productive section of beach open.

So if advisories are still in effect for dungies, when is the next testing? Hoping to get some before Christmas ;0)

So if advisories are still in effect for dungies, when is the next testing? Hoping to get some before Christmas ;0)

Just got back a massively bad test from Manchester/Pt. Arena.  46-270ppm. From a previously reliable source at HTC.  I really hope she is wrong and misread the test or something.

I am no longer optimistic about mid January.

So if advisories are still in effect for dungies, when is the next testing? Hoping to get some before Christmas ;0)

You'd think that when fisheries managers close down a multi billion dollar industry they'd do it using solid science and their testing would include multiple repeatable test sites, possibly a grid pattern of the mud flats. Nothing could be further from the truth.
 In each port a single Captian has donated his time, boat and operating costs along with at least one crew member. They test with around 10 pots set in seemingly random places at the whim of the managers.
Of course they couldn't do it on their shiny tax payer bought 60ft catamarans that handle these winter waters with ease. That may include getting wet and cold. The weather window may happen on a weekend or during someone's paid winter vacation leave...
The 30ppm threshold below which all crabs must test is another number they tout as science but is total bullshit.
It's a number they guessed after an incident that happened in the mid eighties in Canada where inhabitants of a small island where a mussel farm operated were affected. A few people died and some experienced various symptoms of Domoic Acid poisoning. It took investigators nearly a week to get to the island and try to find the source of the poisoning. They were never sure the mussels they tested were the offenders or wether concentrations had increased or decreased during that time. They are sure that the afflicted ate large quantities of mussels. Domoic acid resides mainly in the gut. When eating mussels you eat the gut, not so with crab. They found DA levels of up to around 500 ppm and from that guessed that 30ppm should be ok (remember, when eating Dungies WE DONT EAT THE GUT). Many biologists I have spoken to believe that numbers as high as 60 to 90 ppm could be safe. With a threshold closer to those numbers most of the coast could be open.
There has NEVER been a SINGLE CASE reported of poisoning related to Domoic Acid from people eating Dungeness Crab. NEVER.
I cold continue to explain to you all the complete incompetence of our fisheries managers, but I can tell that I've already lost half of you.
Yakhopper, don't count on local crabs this season. There will not be any by Christmas, unless you buy them from the fleet operated by Native Americans, who by the way are happily fishing enjoying high prices and killing hundreds of Americans...no, wait what? That last part about killing Americans, it's not happening.

Haha, thanks for that. Are they at least testing NDN harvested crabs? Then we'd at least have more info about toxicity.