As i told, you dont need to save\load it, you get full list when type /mods, so its better to delete old table and create new empty. And that means that your $chan-entry was from later just keep being there due to your save\load. (When you add items to hash table - you RE-write old one if they match by value, but other old (moderators, who were un-moded from channel) will still exist in your hash, thats why you need to delete whole table.)