SEATTLE — Now more than ever, buying seafood from a local farmers' market or fancy restaurant could be tainted by toxins or poached from Northwest waters, according to multiple officers from Washington State Fish and Wildlife.
State legislators are considering a new budget that could cut eight officers from the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Lt. Paul Golden oversees the WDFW's Statewide Investigative Unit and said, because of staffing cuts over the past two decades and the potential loss of another eight officers, "the state's economy is at risk, and people's health is at risk."
Golden, Deputy Chief Mike Cenci and dozens of WDFW officers and detectives have spent the past few months investigating a former Seattle Mariners player, who they believe is the leader of an illegal crab poaching ring in north Puget Sound. Right-hander Ricky Guttormson did a short stint as a professional and semi-pro pitcher 10 years ago.
Authorities believe Guttormson is the suspected leader of an illegal crab poaching ring. In early April, WDFW officers searched Guttormson's rented home on Jura Drive in Anacortes and seized crabbing gear, vehicles and a boat.
According to search warrants filed in Skagit County, WDFW investigators believe the Anacortes-native has been crabbing without a commercial license and not recording his catch, which allegedly included off-limit females and undersized crab.
"When you poach shellfish or fish, that's product that's being taken that's not being accounted for," said WDFW Puget Sound Shellfish Manager Rich Childers.
If poaching on the scale Guttormson is suspected of is allowed to continue, "the actual species is at risk of going extinct, or more commonly is that their numbers get reduced to a point that you no longer can support fisheries," Childers explained, which could potentially end crab fishing in Puget Sound.
WDFW officers suspect Guttormson's poached crab also landed on consumers' plates.
"Some of this product was going to non-traditional seafood buyers, some of it was going directly to individuals, some of it potentially going into restaurants," according to Deputy Chief Cenci.
Poached product has ended-up in some of the Pacific Northwest's fanciest eateries. Rodney Allan Clark was sentenced in February to 5 1/2 years in prison for stealing oysters and clams from private fisheries and toxic sites not opened for shellfish harvesting. Clark then sold his sometimes "rotten and contaminated…shellfish" to the public.
According to court documents filed in King County, some of Clark's unsuspecting high-end customers were Elliott's Oyster House, The Brooklyn, the Herbfarm, as well as multiple markets throughout Seattle. Oysters Clark sold in Eastern Washington even made people sick.
Golden told KIRO 7 that poached seafood, especially shellfish, is not only dangerous, but it can also be deadly.
"On the worst end of it, the poachers are stealing product from sewage treatment plants," he said.
"If we can't confirm or verify that the shellfish came from a legitimate source, a safe source that has been tested and certified by the Washington State Department of Health, then people don't know what they're eating," added WDFW Detective Wendy Willette. "They could potentially eat something that's tainted with some kind of biotoxin, or heavy metal or even raw sewage."
Each year, there are dozens of confirmed shellfish-related illnesses in Washington state. For each reported case, health officials believe 142 illnesses go unreported, which is why Fish and Wildlife officers are so concerned about a growing trend of people selling poached product to non-seafood businesses -- including nail salons --- all over the northwest.
Where the poached seafood comes from, and who eventually eats it, isn't always known. But even one illness from poached product can seriously harm the state's $270 million a year shellfish industry.
"If you end up having someone get sick from eating bivalves or clams or oysters that came from a pulled area, it could have a huge economic impact to the shellfish industry in our state," according to Puget Sound Shellfish Manager Childers.
Washington has already experienced what happens when the safety of our state's shellfish is questioned. In December 2013, China banned all shellfish from the state because of organic arsenic found in a geoduck shipment. The ban was lifted a few months later, but not before Washington lost jobs and more than a million dollars in revenue.
"I think the whole situation is a really good example of how serious it could be if we had poached product shipped-out that was tainted or polluted," Golden said.
Golden and all of the WDFW officers who spoke to KIRO 7 said the risk of serious illness from shellfish poisoning and loss of business in the state's shellfish industry is higher now than it's ever been, because there are fewer of them.
In 1993, 163 commissioned Fish and Wildlife officers patrolled our state. That number has now dropped to 127 and only six of them are detectives who investigate suspected poachers like Clark and Guttormson.
It could get even worse. Legislators are considering a new state budget that could cut an additional eight fish and wildlife officers. Cenci doesn't mince words when he speaks of the possible impact.
"Poaching is a 365-day a year activity," he said. "We just can't keep up."
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Cox Media Group
