By Eric Trent

The Chronicle

Domoic acid is still present in unsafe levels at all five razor clam harvest areas with no foreseeable end in the near future.

The state Department of Health requires that two samples must test under 20 parts per million for the razor clam season to open back up.

The most recent tests, taken Jan. 11, showed 45 parts per million (ppm) for domoic acid at Long Beach; 43 ppm at Twin Harbors; 28 ppm at Copalis southern section; 25 ppm at Copalis middle section; 27 ppm at Copalis northern section; 36 ppm at Mocrocks middle section; and 25 ppm at Mocrocks northern section.

“We’re a ways out before we’ll be able to open,” said Dan Ayres, the coastal shellfish manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW).

Testing is done by digging 12 random clams from each of the five harvest areas: Long Beach, Twin Harbors, Copalis, Mocrocks and Kalaloch.

The WDFW knows from previous studies that the domoic acid load from individual razor clams can vary a fair amount. So the state Department of Health (DOH) takes the clams and cleans them so only the meat is tested — it’s the only part that is consumed — then blends them all together in a blender. A subsample of that gives an official domoic acid reading.

The peak reading since the October closure over three months ago was 65 ppm, and last month in December, it dropped down to 20 ppm and nearly prompted a reopening.

But the WDFW is required to produce two clean samples, spaced two weeks apart, in order to reopen. Then the numbers did what the WDFW has seen happen in the past, which is jump around. Ayres attributes that to the 12 clams being selected randomly.

The one good note is there is still no toxin in the water, which has been gone since October 2020, meaning no paralytic or diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (PSP/DSP) has been detected on any beach since then.

The problem is, razor clams are unusual among shellfish in that they bind the toxin up in their fat tissue and hold onto it for a long period of time. Most shellfish, such as mussels and hardshell clams, pick up the toxin and flush it very quickly.

In past years, when an individual beach had high levels of toxins, the WDFW would close that single beach and keep the others open that had levels below the threshold. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the WDFW will not open clam digging until all five beaches have levels below 20 ppm. The reason being that thousands of people would descend on that one beach and heighten the chances of spreading the coronavirus.

To put it in perspective, 15,000 people dug on opening day on Sept. 16, 2020 across the five harvest areas. Imagine 15,000 going to one small beach at once.

“One thing we promised the counties and the governor’s office is we would not open any single beach, and that we would open all beaches at one time, and therefore spread people out and try to reduce the huge crowds that can form on a razor clam dig,” Ayres said.

In the meantime, Ayres said that if someone wants to keep track of the domoic acid levels on the WDFW website, look for the beach with the highest levels, because that’s the one that will decide whether everything opens up or not.

The little over one month that the season was open, from Sept. 16 to Oct. 20, saw both historic levels of clams and near-record numbers of diggers.

Final stock assessment surveys just before the season opened showed the highest number of clams in 40 years. The preliminary number was 26 million harvestable clams coastwide for the 2020-21 season. In comparison, there were 13 million clams in 2019, which at the time was the highest amount in 25 years.

The numbers lived up to the expectations as diggers saw some of the best digging in decades. The 12 days of digging — out of the 39 scheduled at the time — saw 81,508 diggers hauling in 1,222,732 clams.

The final set of digs were from Oct. 16-20, before the WDFW’s emergency closure on Oct. 21 due to increasing levels of domoic acid.

Now the waiting game continues. Currently three months into the emergency closure, Ayres said closures of this length while not rare, are also not entirely uncommon. This is Ayres’ 41st year with the WDFW and he didn’t see any problems with domoic acid in razor clams until the first closure in November 1991, when the toxin was first detected on the Pacific Coast.

That closure lasted an entire year, until November 1992. The next closure came in 1997-98, occurring again in the fall, and beaches were closed again for an entire year. The same thing happened from 2002-03, which caused the closure of the entire season.

When it occurred again in 2015-16, Long Beach was able to open for a short period of time, just long enough for the annual Long Beach Razor Clam Festival. But domoic acid returned and forced a closure in May 2015 which lasted until 2016. The peak during that time was 140 ppm. The Twin Harbors Beach was never able to open from 2015-16.

One year, on Kalaloch Beach, levels were just shy of 400 ppm. That beach wasn’t able to reopen for 18 months. It basically took a whole year of clams dying off and new clams coming in that hadn’t been exposed.

“The track record is not good,” Ayres said. “The good news is, about this season, the peak levels at each beach didn’t get as high as they did in any of those previous years. My hope is that means they don’t have as much toxin to lose and perhaps it won’t take so long.”

For more information on the recreational razor clam season, visit wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/shellfishing-regulations/razor-clams. For the latest domoic acid levels, visit wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/basics/domoic-acid/levels.