BARNEGAT LIGHT — Scallopers in New Jersey and elsewhere on the East Coast are poised for a season of harvesting shellfish for export at unusually high market prices as a result of the earthquake and tsunami devastation in Japan.
Fear developed about contaminated seafood last week after the announcement about radiation in the waters off of Japan’s troubled nuclear plant. But local scallopers say market prices are already rising as China tries to supply its population without seafood from Japan.
China and Japan are the world’s top two scallop producers, according to statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Chile is the top producer after China and Japan.
While experts say radioactive particles are unlikely to build up significantly in fish, the seafood concerns in Japan mean countries like China will put even more pressure on the United States for scallop production.
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