Sylvester Yetman, the former mayor, and Stephen Ryan, the current mayor of the town of St. Mary's, walk on the beach next to the abandoned fish-sauce processing plant.Johnny C.Y. Lam/The Globe and Mail
Stephen Ryan collects runoff from a drainage pipe flowing out of an abandoned fish sauce plant into St. Mary’s Bay on Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula. He clocks the flow rate at a half-gallon per minute – enough to fill a 500-millilitre water bottle every 15 seconds.
The mayor of St. Mary’s, a town of about 300 people, says the source of the problem is an estimated 300,000 gallons of old fish sauce that’s been fermenting in 100 vats in the plant since the federal government shuttered the company, Atlantic Seafood Sauce Co., in 2001.
For years, the town has complained about the plant’s stench, which is as thick and menacing as the weeds and wildflowers are dense and wild in the fields behind the facility. But the real problem is even more menacing than the plant’s sour odour.
“It’s highly deadly to the fish and fish environment,” says Mr. Ryan.
Yet the town is still caught in in the middle of a battle over which jurisdiction – the province or Ottawa – should foot the bill for a cleanup that will likely cost at least $1.3-million and involve trucking all waste to a landfill in another municipality.
”With it flowing into the ocean again, the federal government has a responsibility to do something,” says Mr. Ryan.
Town of St. Mary's Mayor Stephen Ryan fills a water bottle and times the flow rate at the sewage outflow pipe at the abandoned fish-sauce processing plant.Johnny C.Y. Lam/The Globe and Mail
As The Globe and Mail reported last fall, testing by Fisheries and Oceans Canada of the liquid waste leaking from the plant in 2016 showed the substance is deadly to fish. But those results only reached townspeople seven years later, after an Access to Information and Privacy request issued to Environment and Climate Change Canada by CBC-Radio Canada, and then by The Globe.
Upon learning eight years ago that the effluent killed fish, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans ordered a leaky drainage pipe at the plant sealed. But as of this week, the pipe is still draining into the Atlantic.
“With the large amount of rain we have had in the last month and the roof being open, the material is being washed out through the drain system. The mayor was on site and could not fix the problem,” reads a July 23, 2024 e-mail from the St. Mary’s Town Council, shared with The Globe, that urges the federal Fisheries Minister to address the issue.
In February, the town received an estimate from an environmental consultant retained last year to advise on removal and disposal of the fish sauce waste from the former plant.
That estimate put the cleanup costs at $1.3-million, not including expenses to demolish the building. Behind closed doors, says Mr. Ryan, the province has pledged to pay half of that bill. But the question remains: Will Ottawa pick up the rest of the cheque?
“We have everything but the cash,” says Mr. Ryan.
“This has been going on for about 10 years – back and forth, back and forth. Now the province is wanting to help, but we’re held up on the federal government,” he adds.
Stephen Ryan next to broken pieces of the exterior walls of the abandoned fish-sauce processing plant.Johnny C.Y. Lam/The Globe and Mail
When The Globe asked if the province would support remediation, Debbie Maxwell, a spokesperson for the Department of Environment and Climate Change, referred to a previous government statement: “Premier [Andrew] Furey has previously stated that the provincial government would look into this matter, for multilayer solutions with all levels of government, to help find a resolution; that commitment hasn’t changed.”
The department, which supplied the town of St. Mary’s with the $205,000 grant to retain an environmental consultant last year, told The Globe that provincial officials would continue to raise the issue with their federal counterparts.
When The Globe asked Environment and Climate Change Canada whether it would support the cleanup, the department passed the responsibility back to the province.
“The St. Mary’s, Newfoundland, seafood sauce plant is a complex matter that implicates many jurisdictions. Environment and Climate Change Canada recommends contacting the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, as the permitting authority for this facility,” said Tarik Abouziane, a spokesperson for the department.
The department has repeatedly declined support, including in its most recent response to Mr. Ryan.
“Environment and Climate Change Canada does not have programs to facilitate or provide funding for the clean-up of this abandoned fish sauce processing plant,” reads a May 30 letter to Mr. Ryan from Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who referred the issue to Sean Fraser, Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities.
In a letter dated June 17, Mr. Fraser similarly noted “Infrastructure Canada does not currently have any programs to facilitate or provide funding for the clean-up of the abandoned fish sauce processing plant.”
Meanwhile, DFO has not yet responded to the town’s latest request.
As part of the cleanup, the town of Sunnyside has the only provincially-approved site for the disposal of this organic waste, said Glenn Sharp, who heads the environmental engineering firm contracted by St. Mary’s town council to develop a remediation plan for the plant.
Sunnyside is a community of about 400 people, about 160 kilometres northwest of St. Mary’s.
Included in the remediation estimate is an upgraded landfill site, designed with lined cells that prevent groundwater contamination. The town of Sunnyside could not be reached for comment, but Mr. Ryan and Mr. Sharp confirmed the town’s involvement.
“They’re even willing to store it until their site is ready to put it into the ground,” says Mr. Ryan.
To stabilize the waste for transportation, Mr. Sharp recommends the contents of the vats are mixed with peat to solidify the waste for transport by truck. Another option Mr. Sharp explored was pumper truck, which vacuums liquids directly into a tank for transportation. But that option would be more expensive, given labour costs. And much of the waste is semi-solid, requiring mixing it with water for pumping, which could create a “huge odour,” says Mr. Sharp.
Given the high salt concentration of the substance, Mr. Sharp also ruled out composting options.
Ken McDonald, the MP for the Newfoundland riding of Avalon, says the federal government must step up.
“DFO officials went to the plant, took samples, and every fish they tested with it died, but nobody was ever told that. These people deserve answers as to why that wasn’t told to them at that time, and somebody has got to step up and clean up this mess,” says Mr. McDonald.
When Mr. Sharp explored disposal options, based on DFO’s testing, the federal department’s direction was clear: Ocean disposal of the fish sauce waste was not an option.
“If I can just infer from that. If they didn’t want, in any way, for the effluent to enter the ocean, then they wouldn’t want it to be running on the beach either,” says Mr. Sharp, who has been handling sewage and waste removal for 35 years.
Last fall, when The Globe asked the federal government whether it would support remediation, Environment and Climate Change Canada said its authority was limited to preventing deposits of harmful substances into the water.
“ECCC Enforcement authority is limited in this situation to administering and enforcing the pollution prevention provisions of the Fisheries Act, which prohibit the deposit of deleterious substances into water frequented by fish,” said the department.
“Under the Fisheries Act, they have to deal with the issue,” says Mr. Ryan. Add to that, says the mayor, that the federal government has been involved from day one.
“Right from the day the ribbon was cut,” says Mr. Ryan, referring to the plant’s opening in 1990.
As The Globe reported last fall, federal dollars supplied the plant’s former owner, Sanh Ngo – a retired Canadian Coast Guard and former Vietnamese naval captain – with the capital he needed to open the company. As the first-ever fish sauce company in North America, the business should have flourished, creating jobs in a province that was on the cusp of facing its largest layoff in history: the 1992 cod moratorium. Instead, the company foundered on a mess of federal regulations.
Salt leaching into the bay especially worries the town’s mayor, who says local fisheries, from Atlantic lobster to Atlantic cod, are central to life in St. Mary’s. Also, within 100 metres of the old fish sauce plant is the town’s biggest employer, St. Mary’s Bay Fisheries Inc. It reopened last year after the province approved the company’s application for a new primary processing licence for groundfish, whelk and snow crab.
With 300 employees, including local and temporary foreign workers, the processing plant knocked the town grocery story, Ryan’s Valufood – which employs eight people and is owned by Mr. Ryan – out of its position as St. Mary’s top employer.
“The province is at the table, ready to do whatever it takes. And the federal government – whether it’s through Environment or Infrastructure or DFO – I don’t care who does it, somebody has got to come up with the other half of the money federally,” says Mr. McDonald.
“It’s been going on so long that people don’t think it’s going to get cleaned up, but this is our chance. We’re finally so close,” says Mr. Ryan.