Ocean, safety at risk as wind tears apart rancid Newfoundland fish sauce plant: mayor

High winds tore the wall of this abandoned fish sauce plant in St. Mary's, N.L., shown on Jan, 17, 2026, leaving more than 100 oozing vats of fermented fish sauce exposed to the nearby ocean.

ST. JOHN’S — A foul-smelling abandoned fish-sauce factory in rural Newfoundland has become an environmental and safety hazard after high winds tore the front wall off the building on Friday night.

Steve Ryan, the mayor of St. Mary’s, N.L., said there are more winds coming and he has been speaking with residents near the decaying building about evacuating.

Ryan is worried their homes will be in the path of flying debris. He is also concerned about the fetid stench emanating from more than 100 vats of fermented, congealed fish that have been oozing inside the plant for more than two decades.

“The smell was being contained before because it was inside of a building,” he said in an interview. “Now the building is not really there anymore, it’s just totally exposed. So the smell is going to be much, much worse for residents.”

The Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company Ltd. building sits on the shoreline of the town of about 300 people, just steps away from the ocean. It first opened in 1990, bringing about two dozen much-needed jobs to the area, Ryan said. The owner abandoned it about a decade later, after extended legal battles about food safety complaints.

Residents woke up Saturday to find much of the wall closest to the water had come off. Part of it lay inside the plant, part of it was strewn on the beach in front of the building and part had blown out to sea, Ryan said.

There are rich fishing grounds just off the shore. Without the wall, there is nothing much to protect the ocean from the liquids that have seeped out of the old sauce vats and formed a putrid, toxic stew inside the building over the years, Ryan said.

“This is an emergency now,” he said. “Federal ministers said it’s not environmental, it’s environmental. Listen to a small-town mayor in St. Mary’s: it’s environmental.”

He hopes the Canadian Coast Guard or some other federal agency will offer some help to keep run-off from the building out of the ocean. In a statement, the federal Department of National Defence said the situation was not a coast guard matter.

The provincial government said last year that it would foot the bill to clean up the site, and the former Liberal government even set aside money for the operation in the province’s budget. But Ryan said the process has been slow and he hasn’t yet been able to issue a request for proposals for the work.

In the meantime, Environment Canada is warning that winds gusting to 100 kilometres an hour are expected in the region on Monday. Sunday morning is also expected to be blustery, with wind gusts hitting 70 km/h.

“The good-side way to look at this is something will actually have to be done now with this site,” Ryan said.

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2026.