Packed Like Sardines

Hola!

Though I have been taunting many of you with the fact that I am living on the beach while you're digging yourself out of the snow, let me let you in on a little secret: the beach I can see from my window would make most of you cringe and none of you reach for a bathing suit and towel.

We cannot swim at the beach directly adjacent to the center--it is contaminated by effluent from the cannery, and is covered in a thick layer of algae (sea lettuce, or ulva lactuca for those of you who care about these things) that has taken over the beach because of excess nutrients emitted in that effluent. It smells of dead fish, and due to the number of fishermen using this point as a launching point, is home to significant numbers of dead fish, stingrays, and other bycatch. The cannery is not permitted, under Mexican law, to dump any waste directly into the bay, and it has an expensive chemical filtration system that is supposed to purify the water up to 95%. However, the system is expensive, and the only times the company uses it is when the inspector is coming. Somehow they always know when the inspector is coming, and can then turn on the system and pass inspection. 

The system was on when we had a  tour of the cannery, possibly because we were coming through, but none of us was comforted by the cannery's gesture towards environmental resposiblity. What is essentially a large, round, slowly turning strainer spins over a large concrete pool, removing large peices of fish (or who knows what else) from the dark brown water cascading to the pool amidst a pile of tan foam. This water is then pumped  into a large holding tank before being piped into the filtration system. In a large stainless steel vat, chemicals cause the fats in the water, which still contains fish viscera and who knows what else, to float to the top in a dirty goop. Paddles skim this fatty foam off the top of the vat, pushing it to a collector to be taken to the dump. The water leaving this is still the color of iced tea and is piped directly into the bay on a daily basis. 

Those of you who are very attached to sardines or tuna may not want to continue reading this article. Though our tour of the CalMex cannery in Puerto San Carlos was almost two weeks ago, my memories of the experience are still vivid, and we witness (and smell) the effects of the cannery  on the surrounding environment on a daily basis. The CalMex cannery provides jobs for about 25% of the town and has been a significant part of the local economy since it opened in 1969. 

Our tour began on a Monday morning, when the smell of dead fish had not get began to drift towards campus on the wind. We walked through a parking lot and down a narrow road between the docks and the actual plant, weaving around machinery and men working as we went. It is sardine season, which means that tons (literally) of sardines are brought directly from the boats and dumped into holding containers that let a steady stream of fish onto conveyor belts below. 

At the first stop, two rows of women working on either side of the belt take the whole fish and line them up in notches along the outside of the conveyor belts. Their hands worked fast, the sound of machines leaving no real opportunity for talking or communicating while doing the automatic work of lining up fish to be beheaded. The conveyor belt brought the neatly lined up fish to a point where their heads and entrails were removed automatically. The exact mechanism used to do this was not visible from outside the machine, but a concrete channel underneath rushed with water, carrying away what had been removed. 

In the subsequent steps, the fish were packed about 10 to a can by women working equally quickly and silently as the first group. Men put still open cans of whole fish onto large trays and carry them to the ovens, which they take 25 (45?) minutes to move through. When different men remove the trays from the other end, the fish are cooked and ready for the sauce to be put on. The same machine that fills the cans with sauce seals the lids and moves them to a pool of water where they wait to be sterilized in giant autoclaves. (Which use high heats and high pressure to kill of any bacteria inside or outside the can.) 

The tuna cannery was not operational, as it's not tuna season, but we were also able to see where fish meal used in agricultural feed and pet food is made. Past the waste treatment system described above is another cement pit, this one full of fish that did not make the cut for canning. A huge pile, pecked at by  few pathetic looking pelicans, also contains fish entrails, heads, and who knows what else. When the fish meal is being made, this whole mixture is ground up and baked until it is a fine brown powder. It is this process that creates the rank smell that drifts over our campus every afternoon. 

I promise that a less graphic post about whales and research and without even a hint of my environmental food dork bias will come very soon. I'm spending the day tomorrow with 5 and 6 year old brothers and their wonderful grandfather, who comprise my host family for the weekend, so I'm sure I will have lots of stories!

Love and LOTS of hugs, 

Emma