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No Malachite Green In New Fish Tests
By Keven Drews
Harvesting could resume at a Clayoquot Sound fish farm this week after followup tests failed to indicate the presence of a potential carcinogen in five chinook salmon samples.
Spencer Evans, general manager of the Creative Salmon Company Ltd., said an official from the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands contacted his company this weekend and said samples taken from the Eagle Bay farm tested negative for malachite green.
“We were given a verbal OK over the phone to start harvesting again,” said Evans. “We could be harvesting out at Eagle Bay this week or next week.
Malachite green is a fungicide that is not permitted for use during any part of the food-production cycle.
Last week, Creative Salmon announced it had suspended harvesting at the Eagle Bay farm after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found traces of malachite green last month in a U.S.-bound shipment.
Evans said his company doesn’t use malachite green, but the tests proved positive at 2.868 parts per billion.
“We still have no explanation for the positive results,” he said.
Under the scrutiny of a provincial fisheries officer, Creative Salmon took five samples from the
farm Jan. 8.
The fisheries officer then sent the samples off to a lab in Vancouver, said Evans.
“He reported back to us yesterday [Saturday] that the results were all negative.”
Despite the news, Evans said Creative Salmon is working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to voluntarily recall salmon harvested from one Eagle Bay pen and sold into the Canadian market.
Evans said about 20,000 fish remain at the Eagle Bay farm, and the company will meet today to discuss its harvesting options.
Creative Salmon’s fish was not the only product to test positive for malachite green in December.
Last week, Marine Harvest Canada announced a sample of its fish also tested positive for the presence of malachite green. The FDA reported levels of 1.56 parts per billion.
The company said in a press release, it, too, doesn’t use the chemical, which is found in background levels in the environment.
“We believe that the level of MG reported by the FDA (1.56 ppb) occurred after leaving our facilities,” stated the release.
The company said fish tested in 2005 and 2007 did not detect the chemical, tests of fish from the same farm and taken during processing this month did not detect the chemical, and random tests taken in December did not detect the chemical.
The company said the provincial government was also collecting independent samples for laboratory testing.
Keven.drews@westcoaster.ca
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Source:
Westcoaster.ca
Jan. 14, 2008
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