“The Okanagan Nation Alliance is reporting the largest run of sockeye salmon in decades in Okanagan Lake. Roughly 60,000 were harvested with about 10,000 of them going to local First Nations bands.”
The other 50,000 will be sold or traded.
It begs the question, “Would you buy any of these fish?”
First, a bit of a geography and biology lessons are in order.
It is approximately 122 km (75 miles) from Osoyoos to Brewster Wash. where the Okanagan river enters the Columbia. From Brewster to Astoria, the confluence of the Columbia river, the approximate distance is 761 km. (Note: The distance is not the true river distance, but rather the road distance between the centres. The river meanders so it’s distance is somewhat more than those I have listed.)
Hanford Nuclear reactor is approx. 235 km south of Brewster or 39 km north of Kennewick. From Kennewick to Astoria, 488 km. Therefore, it is 527 kilometres from Hanford to the saltchuck.
Hanford was built in 1942 and went into production 1943. The sole purpose was plutonium production for the atomic bomb. It’s design was for a 20 year life span, however it’s operation continued until 1987 due to the Cold War. At some point in time, the or some of the tanks developed leaks which discharged into the Columbia river. The discourse is that the amount of the discharge is minimal and the volume of river water flow greatly dilutes the nuclear contamination. The Americans have been blaming Fu-Kushima for radiation contamination occurring along the Washington/Oregon coast. Would you not expect the volume of water between Fu-Kushima and Astoria to have a far greater dilution effect? I would.
The sockeye smoults leaving Osoyoos Lake have to travel a distance of 527 km of nuclear contaminated water and the same water on their return.
Has anybody from the ONA had an independent body test the harvested fish for radioactive contamination?
Would I buy any of those fish? Nope!