Things are getting downright ugly in the gorgeous Newfoundland and Labrador community of St. Mary’s.
An unbearable smell fills the air.
The Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company plant, originally intended to make seafood sauce for bottling and use in Aisan cooking, has fallen into disrepair leaving only problems in the wake of its closing. (Bruce Tilley/CBC)
How unbearable?
“It’s hard to explain the smell to you,” says the town’s voluntary deputy mayor, Steve Ryan, to whom much of the burden of finding a solution has fallen.
“Whatever you think is the worst smell you have ever smelt, times that by a hundred.”
It comes from the contents of an factory abandoned over a decade ago: fermenting seafood sauce sitting in 147 large 12,500-litre vats that have solidified and leaked onto the plant’s floor, sauce that is a mixture of capelin, herring, water and salt, sauce that was never bottled.
Some residents have been forced to keep masks in their homes. (Bruce Tilley/CBC)
And that’s just a part of the physical reality people in St. Mary’s are dealing with; never mind the emotional toll of watching neighbours get sick and anger that continues to build as powers-that-be that might fund a cleanup look the other way or bicker over who should come up with the dough.
The stench left when the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company closed was semi-bearable until two years ago when floor drains in the building were plugged during a cleanup attempt.
Since then, things have gotten worse for the town near the southwestern tip of the province.
A playground and schools are within a half-mile of the former plant and most of the residents live within shouting distance.
It seemed like a great idea at the time department: then-federal cabinet minister John Crosbie cuts the ribbon to officially open the facility in 1990. (CBC)
But shout as loud as they might, they have run into nothing but roadblocks as they try to find a solution to end their nightmare described in this CBC investigative report.
I spoke by phone with Deputy Mayor Ryan on Friday.
Before moving on to the source of the problem, we talked about the bureaucratic hurdles he and his fellow residents face.
Luckily, like so many people in Newfoundland and Labrador, he is a resilient man, determined to find a solution.
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