October 24th, 2016 — Shellfish harvesting — with the exception of bay scallops — continues to be banned in Nantucket waters because of toxic plankton, which first arrived Oct. 7 in Cape Cod waters and made its way to the island a few days later.
“On Tuesday the state Division of Marine Fisheries requested shellfish to sample and we sent them 20 oysters from the harbor for tissue testing,” said Jeff Carlson, Nantucket’s natural resources coordinator.
“Hopefully they can get the testing done quickly and if it comes back clean, we can open things back up.”
Carlson said he did not know how long the state would take to test the samples and added it had sent out similar requests to towns bordering Nantucket Sound that have been included in the harvesting ban.
The reason for the state-mandated closure is plankton called Pseudo-nitzschia that produces a toxin that if consumed leads to amnesic shellfish poisoning. Symptoms of such poisoning include nausea, abdominal cramps, vomiting, dementia, amnesia, permanent loss of short-term memory and, in extreme cases, coma or death.