Oakland Bay Closed to Commercial Harvesting of Oysters

The naturally occurring bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus has again caused Oakland Bay to be closed to commercial harvesting of oysters. This is in addition to Hammersley Inlet, Pickering Passage, Totten Inlet, Little Skookum Inlet in south Puget Sound and Samish Bay near Anacortes which have also been closed due to illnesses contracted from oysters harvested from those areas.

The Washington Department of Health notes 2006 was most likely the year that an environmental threshold was crossed.