a month and Chinook just under once a month." In 2005, Russia banned importing chilled fish from Norway, after samples of Norwegian farmed fish showed high levels of heavy metals. According to the Russian Minister of Agriculture Aleksey Gordeyev, levels of lead in the fish were 10 to 18 times higher than Russian safety standards and cadmium levels were almost four times higher. Pollutants or toxins introduced by pisciculturists In 2006, eight Norwegian salmon producers were caught in unauthorized and unlabeled use of nitrite in smoked and cured salmon. Norway applies EU regulations on food additives, according to which nitrite is allowed as a food additive in certain types of meat, but not fish. Fresh salmon was not affected. Kurt Oddekalv, leader of the Green Warriors of Norway, argues that the scale of fish farming in Norway is unsustainable. Huge volumes of uneaten feed and fish excrement pollute the seabed, while chemicals designed to fight sea lice find their way into the food chain. He says: "If people knew this, they wouldn’t eat salmon", describing the farmed fish as "the most toxic food in the world". Don Stanifordthe former scientist turned activist/investigator and head of a small Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquacultureagrees, saying that a 10-fold increase in the use of some chemicals was seen in the 2016-2017 timeframe. The use of the toxic drug emamectin is rising fast. The levels of chemicals used to kill sea lice have breached environmental safety limits more than 100 times in the last 10 years. Impact on wild salmonids Farmed salmonids can, and often do, escape from sea cages. If the farmed salmonid is not native, it can compete with native wild species for food and habitat. If the farmed salmonid is native, it can interbreed with the wild native salmonids. Such interbreeding can reduce genetic diversity, disease resistance, and adaptability. In 2004, about 500,000 salmon and trout escaped from ocean net pens off Norway. Around Scotland, 600,000 salmon were released during storms. Commercial fishermen targeting wild salmon frequently catch escaped farm salmon. At one stage, in the Faroe Islands, 20 to 40 percent of all fish caught were escaped farm salmon. In 2017, about 263,000 farmed non-native Atlantic salmon escaped from a net in Washington waters in the 2017 Cypress Island Atlantic salmon pen break. Sea lice, particularly Lepeophtheirus salmonis and various Caligus species, including C. clemensi and C. rogercresseyi, can cause