Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski questioned this week whether the Chinese ban on shellfish from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest might be about more than safety.
"Yes, it's a concern about safety," the senator said while visiting Ketchikan on Thursday. "But it does cause you to wonder if there are other issues that are at play here with China, and how appropriate levels of intervention might be."
Murkowski said it's important the federal government follow through on the issue, noting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is sending a delegation to China in the coming weeks to discuss the ban and shellfish harvesting in the United States, The Ketchikan Daily News reported.
China banned the import of oysters, clams, mussels and scallops from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest in December. The Chinese government said it discovered paralytic shellfish poisoning in geoducks harvested in the Middle Gravina Island area of southeast Alaska and high levels of arsenic in geoducks from Puget Sound in Washington state.
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February 24, 2014
