Study finds Port Valdez shrimp OK to eat

The shrimp are safe!

That’s the upshot of research into whether shrimp caught in Port Valdez are contaminated with Alaska North Slope crude oil, the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council said in a May 11 press release.

For the shrimp study, the council said it worked with the scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service Auke Bay lab in Juneau.

Small amounts of crude oil hydrocarbons enter the waters of Port Valdez from discharge from the oil tanker terminal’s ballast water treatment facility, the council said.

“The amount of ballast water processed by the facility has declined in recent years. This decline is in part because decreased oil flow through the pipeline means fewer tankers. In addition, all of the tankers in Prince William Sound are now double-hulled which means that ballast water is typically separated from the oil cargo tanks and does not need to be treated at the facility. Improvements in ballast water treatment processes have further lowered the discharge of hydrocarbons from the terminal. As a result, hydrocarbons discharged into Port Valdez have decreased by about 90 percent, for some of the more toxic hydrocarbon fractions, since the early 2000s.”

The council press release continued:

“Even though the amount is small, the hydrocarbons have the potential to contaminate organisms in the area. Traces of hydrocarbons from the terminal and tanker operations have been detected in bay mussel and sediment samples taken in Port Valdez. The council has been monitoring mussels and sediments in the region for the last 21 years. While our data shows that hydrocarbons in the port have been declining in recent years, these detectable levels in local shellfish raised concerns among people who harvest shrimp from the area, which prompted the council to test hydrocarbon levels in shrimp from the port.

“The short takeaway message from the study is hydrocarbon tainting of shrimp muscle is not a concern for the shrimp fishery in Port Valdez and observed concentrations do not pose a human health risk.”

The report is online at www.pwsrcac.org.

- Wesley Loy