PCSGA Tidings

Ban on raw clams could be under con­sid­er­a­tion ‚even as National Shell­fish group rejects FDA plans for sec­ond time in six months Bipar­ti­san group of Sen­a­tors and Con­gress­man ask Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­ity Office to Investigate

MARCH 25– Despite reports to the con­trary, the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion is aggres­sively push­ing ahead with plans to ban the sale of tra­di­tional, raw Gulf Coast oys­ters, essen­tially ignor­ing the con­cerns of tens of thou­sands of con­sumers, restau­rant own­ers and seafood work­ers who spoke out against the plan last fall.

But the national shell­fish rule­mak­ing group refused Con­tinue Reading »

By Steven Hed­lund, Seafood­Source edi­tor
3/26/2010 8:48:23 AM — The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion is look­ing at extend­ing its plan requir­ing post-harvest pro­cess­ing on raw oys­ters to include all raw shell­fish from the East and West coasts, accord­ing to Save Our Shellfish.

On Thurs­day, the orga­ni­za­tion, which rep­re­sents numer­ous shell­fish proces­sors, grow­ers and asso­ci­a­tions, released a state­ment claim­ing the FDA is mov­ing for­ward with its plan requir­ing Con­tinue Reading »

Honor your Com­mu­nity and Earth Day by Sweep­ing the Beach Clean on Sat­ur­day April 17.

Come and join in with other beach lovers along our entire Wash­ing­ton coast­line to clean the beach on Sat­ur­day, April 17, in a statewide beach cleanup effort. Offi­cial start time is 9:30 AM (though later may be bet­ter this once, see below) at any major beach approach on the Long Beach Penin­sula.  Beach Approach Coor­di­na­tors at each major beach Con­tinue Reading »

Marine ecol­o­gist runs a marine menagerie designed to put food on plates

By Paul Luke, The Province­March 28, 2010

Marine ecol­o­gist Stephen Cross must be for­given if he beams at one of the sable­fish he’s grow­ing in the waters off north­west Van­cou­ver Island and shouts “Hello, poopsie.”

The sleek, dark-skinned sable­fish does not nor­mally blush and go all wrig­gly when it hears this term of endear­ment. Cross’s sables just might.

After all, they’re pro­fes­sional poopers.

Cross’s com­pany, Kyuquot SEAfoods, has made sable­fish feces the nutri­tional heart Con­tinue Reading »

Lead­ing com­pa­nies and asso­ci­a­tions form inter­na­tional busi­ness alliance on ocean sustainability

29 March 2010 –

Ocean busi­ness lead­ers from a diverse range of indus­tries are dis­tin­guish­ing them­selves as “Found­ing Mem­bers” of the World Ocean Coun­cil — an unprece­dented inter­na­tional, cross-sectoral lead­er­ship alliance on stew­ard­ship of the seas. World Ocean Coun­cil mem­bers call on other respon­si­ble com­pa­nies and indus­tries to engage in this inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ship for “Cor­po­rate Ocean Respon­si­bil­ity” and par­tic­i­pate in the Sus­tain­able Ocean Sum­mit (Belfast, 15–17 June, 2010).

Ini­tial cor­po­rate and asso­ci­a­tion Found­ing Mem­bers of the World Ocean Coun­cil include: Exxon­Mo­bil, Rio Tinto, the Inter­na­tional Cham­ber of Ship­ping, Right­Ship, the North Amer­i­can Marine Con­tinue Reading »

By Aaron Burkhalter

Skagit County secured more than $1.7 mil­lion in fed­eral grant fund­ing this week for two high pri­or­ity initiatives.

The Clean Samish Ini­tia­tive and the Alter­na­tive Futures project both received grants from the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. The grants were among 67 pro­pos­als vying for about $10 mil­lion in fund­ing through the Puget   Sound Water­shed Man­age­ment Assis­tance Program.

County Spokesman Dan Berentson said the news was “very excit­ing” because the two Con­tinue Reading »

By Lind­sey Par­tos, Seafood­Source con­tribut­ing edi­tor, report­ing from Paris

3/23/2010 2:31:09 PM — Just weeks after the Xyn­thia wind­storm rav­aged oys­ter farms in one of France’s major shellfish-farming regions, the country’s agri­cul­ture and fish­eries min­istry announced this week that sales of mus­sels, oys­ters and other shell­fish hail­ing from the Char­ente Mar­itime and Bay of Aigu­il­lon are to be removed from the marketplace.

Tests showed that the area’s mus­sels were con­t­a­m­i­nated with amnesic shell­fish poi­son (ASP). “Col­lec­tion, trans­porta­tion and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of all shell­fish” from the area is pro­hib­ited until fur­ther notice, warned the ministry.

This week’s ban could be the result of the Xyn­thia storm in late Feb­ru­ary, which may have impacted the marine ecosys­tem in Char­ente Mar­itime. The storm caused sig­nif­i­cant dam­age Con­tinue Reading »

Har­poon brewer Katie Tame, left, fla­vored 100 bar­rels of stout with oys­ters from Skip Ben­nett, right, of Island Creek Oys­ters. (David Grossman)

By Greg Kit­sock
Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 24, 2010; E05

“Oys­ter stout” orig­i­nally sig­ni­fied a brew that paired well with oys­ters. The cus­tom of wash­ing down bivalves with a dark, roasty ale dates to 19^th-century Britain, where so many oys­ters were dredged from the Thames that pubs served them as a free snack, much as mod­ern bars do with pork rinds and peanuts.

Recently, two U.S. brew­eries have taken the term lit­er­ally, incor­po­rat­ing the essence of oys­ter into their beers.

“When they heard we were brew­ing an oys­ter stout, half the peo­ple were like, ‘Wow!’ and half scrunched up their faces,” says Gene Muller, founder and gen­eral man­ager of  Fly­ing Fish Brew­ing Co. in Cherry Hill, N.J.

Exit 1 Bayshore Oys­ter Stout debuted in Novem­ber, Con­tinue Reading »