Sahn Ngo, the owner of the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company, decided to capitalize on that waste. The processing plant exported female capelin to Japan, where their eggs are used in sushi preparation as masago, but the male capelin were simply dumped. When it opened, the Atlantic Seafood Sauce factory processed capelin, a small fish native to the Arctic and North Atlantic and a primary food source for Atlantic cod. At the time, fishing was abundant in Canada, and many small towns in Newfoundland Labrador were centered around processing plants mostly open in the summer (in the off-season, employees would receive unemployment or travel to find other work). When it was built, the Atlantic Seafood Sauce factory served as a logical complement to the town’s largest employer, a fish processing plant right down the road. “We’ll take any help in the world to get it cleaned up, everyone seems to have turned a blind eye.” To her, it seems like the federal government is blaming the provincial government, and the provincial government is blaming the federal government: “They’re walking away from it,” she says. Mary’s community, but feels let down by the government’s ineffectual management of the problem. The fumes leave Lee feeling conflicted, in addition to nauseous. “I can get in my car and drive away,” she says. Even though she’s one of the closest residents to the factory, she knows others - including those living at a retirement community less than. Lee has had to rearrange her life around the factory fumes she parks her car at her brother-in-law’s house, and leaves her home entirely in the summer, boarding up the windows and doors in an attempt to keep the smell out of her belongings. Mary’s resident for more than four decades, the stench in the summer is “cruel,” “worse than rotten eggs.” “If you’re out there, you will throw up,” she says, adding that she’s seen hikers walking along the road suddenly get sick when they catch a whiff. What residents are left with is a stink so strong that it feels like a wave get hit, and it will knock you off your feet.Īccording to Juliette “Sis” Lee, a St. Unfortunately, the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company was short lived, shuttering just 11 years after it opened, mired in regulations and legal battles. “For a town like this, 50 jobs is just amazing,” Ryan says, noting the factory would have also fed the municipal tax base. Mary’s current deputy mayor Steve Ryan equated with landing Amazon’s HQ2 in terms of its significance for the town: During the 2011 Canadian census, it had a population of 439. When it originally opened in 1990, it was said to be bringing with it between 14 and 50 jobs, an opportunity that St. The reason: the hollowed-out shell of what was once the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company, which closed its doors in 2001.Īt first the factory seemed like a good idea. When the wind comes from the northeast, it carries the stench of over 100 vats of rotten, nearly 20-year-old fish sauce into the homes and business of everyone in the tiny community. Mary’s, Newfoundland aren’t always that lucky. On a good day the wind blows the fumes right out to sea, but the residents of St.
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