Secondary sump pump failed to activate.
Cermaq Canada posted on Facebook that on Thursday afternoon that it experienced a spill of several hundred litres of wastewater from our Cermaq Canada Processing Plant in Tofino, BC, located on near the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The wastewater consisted of over 95 per cent seawater, with an estimated blood content of less than five per cent, it wrote.
“The spill occurred as wastewater was being offloaded from a harvest vessel into the processing plant’s wastewater management system. During this process, a secondary sump pump failed to activate, resulting in the first sump pump being inundated and overflowing. The overflow went first into a containment trough, then overflowed into the yard and the foreshore area,” Cermaq Canada explained.
The Mitshubushi-owned salmon farmer added that it then immediately stopped the offloading from the harvest vessel, and took action to contain the spill using spill pads.
The secondary sump pump which failed to activate was replaced immediately following the spill. Furthermore, the primary pump was also replaced, and an audible overflow alarm has been installed for safety.
