Tag Archives: chemical contamination

Seattle’s industrial waterfront remains a contamination challenge for orcas. What about Salmon?!

The Southern Resident orcas are often called some of the most contaminated marine mammals on earth. Their fat is filled with toxins like PCBs. When they don’t have enough to eat, they metabolize their fat and that poison ends up in their blood. Though outlawed decades ago, PCBs still remain in the sediment around Elliott Bay.,,,  A lot of the toxic contamination issues that we have with our salmon can really be traced to the fact that the state of Washington is not enforcing the Clean Water Act to the extent that they should,” >click to read< Meanwhile, New study finds river wildlife contain cocaine, pharmaceuticals and pesticides in UK->click to read<10:07

SURETTE: Open-pen fish farming a mess: How the world is passing us by

There’s big stuff happening in the dirty world of open-pen salmon farming. World production of farmed salmon is declining and prices are rising accordingly. The main culprit is sea lice grown immune to the chemicals used to wash them off, helped by algae blooms, fish disease, pollution, damaged wild stocks, and finally political disgust with the whole mess in the more enlightened jurisdictions. The move now, worldwide, is to either haul production to dry land or otherwise insulate the at-sea operations from the surrounding environment,,, >click to read< 18:28

Hunter prawn fishermen wait on Williamtown RAAF Senate inquiry on contamination

HUNTER prawn fishermen have been left on the breadline a few weeks from Christmas as a Senate inquiry into the Williamtown RAAF base contamination scandal kicks into gear. More than 20 affected prawn fishermen have been offered charity handouts for groceries and other essentials after voluntarily shutting down the local trawling industry indefinitely for fear of contamination. Latest Department of Primary Industries testing of locally caught prawns found “elevated” levels of PFOS. Prawn fisherman Kevin Radnidge said he had seen colleagues break down over the past few days as the ­reality of the situation set in. Read the article here 10:20

Calls for goodwill payments to be made for fishermen affected by Williamtown toxic leak

6908280-3x2-700x467The head of the Newcastle Commercial Fishermen’s Co-op is calling on the Department of Defence to immediately make goodwill payments to local fishermen affected by the chemical contamination originating from the Williamtown RAAF base. It has been about two months since the NSW Environment Protection Authority warned that chemicals — perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) — which were historically used in fire fighting foam at the RAAF base, had been found in surface water, groundwater and some fish species in nearby waterways. Read the rest here 08:10