Town tortured by stench of fermenting seafood

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. - A Newfoundland town is being tormented by the unbearable smell of seafood sauce left to ferment in large vats when a factory was abandoned more than a decade ago.

The owner abandoned the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company Ltd. plant in St. Mary’s, N.L., after extended legal battles over food safety complaints.

Much of the sauce was never bottled or sold, and the mixture of capelin, herring, water and salt has been fermenting in the 147 vats since.

“It’s started to become unbearable ... such a foul odour,” Deputy Mayor Steve Ryan said in an interview.

Each container can hold about 12,500 litres of sauce, which has largely solidified in the tanks and leaked onto the floor over the years.

Ryan said the drains were filled with concrete during a cleanup attempt two years ago and since then the liquid has been pooling on the floor, making the stench unbearable.

Ryan has been inside the derelict plant and said the putrid stench is impossible to describe. “I can’t explain it,” Ryan said. “If you were coming to go into this, I’d recommend that you don’t. I’d recommend that you bring two pairs of clothes. I’d recommend that you come in with a vehicle you don’t want to drive no more. Stuff like that.”

A playground and school are within a half-kilometre, Ryan said, and some residents live just a few hundred feet away. Many in the small community of less 400 people near the southwestern tip of Newfoundland feel the decaying plant is a health hazard.