Scientists find opioids in Puget Sound mussels

[SeattleVet]

12. The areas in question have had a ban on harvesting for quite a while.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has a good map showing where it is OK to harvest shellfish:

https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/eh/maps/biotoxin/biotoxin.html

For many years they have been detecting pretty much anything that people put into their bodies, and that water treatment plants cannot remove. During late October through December there is a huge spike in the amount of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice in the water (and the filter feeders) in this area, due to all of the pumpkin pie spice flavored coffee drinks and other foods that people are consuming. Caffeine is always present at relatively high levels, as are birth control pills. Metabolites of THC and CBD are being seen in slightly elevated levels.

Bremerton and Harbor Island are well known to be highly contaminated with a LOT of things. Harbor Island is near the outflow of the Duwamish, which has been on the EPA Superfund Site for many years (it is one of the most polluted waterways in the country).

If you put it into your body, it will eventually become detectable at some level in the water (and filter-feeding marine organisms).

Of course, being detectable and being hazardous are two vastly different things. We are able to detect things in parts-per-trillion...and the allowable level of something even as toxic as arsenic is 10,000ppt in drinking water.

I'm still going to enjoy my oysters, clams, mussels, and other seafood.