SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The territory's top doctor agrees that mushrooms found within 50 kilometres of Yellowknife shouldn't be consumed but says issuing a health warning is unnecessary.

Wild mushrooms, including this Bolete, are not safe to eat within a 50 km radius of the city, according to the GNWT. While the territory's chief public health officer confirms this, he says a health advisory is unnecessary. - photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

"We don't recommend that people pick mushrooms around contaminated sites and around Yellowknife," said Dr. Andre Corriveau, the NWT's chief public health officer on Monday.

He was responding to concerns raised by Joachim Obst in last week's Yellowknifer about arsenic and other heavy metals in mushrooms in the area. Obst, who helps write the GNWT's guidebooks on morel mushroom picking, said the Department of Health and Social Services has ignored his warnings for years about the danger of eating even a small amount of mushrooms picked in and around Yellowknife. The high levels of arsenic in the area can be attributed to Giant Mine.

All plants accumulate metals from the soil, but fungi tend to absorb toxic heavy metals in a higher amount.

Obst helped conduct studies on mushrooms in Yellowknife and the NWT in conjunction with the health department and Health Canada. Obst claims the two government bodies obscured the data by measuring an average of mushroom samples across the NWT and ignoring that Yellowknife-specific mushrooms had much higher heavy metal levels.

"Mushrooms from the Yellowknife area are contaminated and should not be eaten at all, even in small quantities," stated Obst in an e-mail.

Eating an arsenic-contaminated mushroom would likely have no immediate effect, but could lead to cancer down the road, according to Obst.

Corriveau said he has no reason to distrust Obst's data but doesn't want to put out any more material dissuading people from picking local mushrooms.

"There have been previous warnings about not collecting mushrooms near industrial sites," said Corriveau. "We don't have specific advisories but there's been public messaging on that in the past."

Corriveau said very few people are involved in mushroom picking locally and he wouldn't recommend anyone but experts do it.

"We don't necessarily have specific factsheets because we view this as something that very few people are involved in in the first place and most of the mushroom pickers would eat very small amounts and they wouldn't pick around Yellowknife anyway," said Corriveau.

Obst estimates there are "a few hundred" people who pick mushrooms in the area annually. He said that talking about it would only draw more attention to the issue and possibly increase the health hazard.

"It might encourage more people to go pick mushrooms and there might be a health risk associated with it," said Corriveau.

"That's why it was felt that there was no need for us to draw attention to an issue that's not really a public health problem."

He thinks pickers should be more concerned about misidentifying poisonous mushrooms than contaminants.

"By us issuing specific guidelines it might encourage people to go pick mushrooms when they shouldn't because they're not knowledgeable enough to identify (the ones that) might be toxic and that would be a bigger health problem for me," said Corriveau.

Obst thinks the government is trying to deflect or cover up the issue and are afraid of liability issues in connection with Giant Mine.

"Their persistent denial actually may backfire one day," stated Obst in an e-mail.

Corriveau said he's not trying to hide anything.

"I think it's quite clear in the messaging from our colleagues at (the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment) that people shouldn't go and pick mushrooms around Yellowknife," he said.

"To me that's sufficient information that people have."

Corriveau reiterated there is no need for more warnings.

"There are probably not a lot of people picking them and those who are picking them, they've already heard the warnings about not picking around Yellowknife," he said.

Corriveau said studies have shown vegetables and other garden plants are safe to consume in Yellowknife but would not recommend picking berries near mine sites. Obst said three studies he knows of concluded it is safe to eat up to a cup of berries a day from Yellowknife. A study on Yellowknife garden produce also concluded it is safe to eat, although the levels of inorganic arsenic in local garden vegetables is about 10 times higher than the national average.

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