Storm at Work and Retirement

October 6, 2021

 

Our work shift at the end of September was an eventful one.  We had the vaccination crew in on site so we were working hard to get them a steady supply of fish.  We had a new employee on shift with us, the fourth member of our crew, so I was doing a lot of extra work teaching and instructing, and we were riddled with bad weather.  On one particularly bad weather night we listened to the wind howl past the hatchery, the building shook, and the noise kept us awake.  The BC Ferries' Northern Sea Wolf was at dock in Ocean Falls that night. The reported gusts were over 120km and their bowline broke free from the dock. 

Four times that night the hatchery alarm went off, and Jason and I had to get up to deal with it.  Each time it was due to a power fluctuation, called a Brown Out, that tripped some of our sensitive electronic equipment like the frequency drives of our salt-water pumps.  Each time that the alarm went off, I put on my raingear and went out into the sideways pelting rain to restart the tripped equipment and check all systems.  

Over the same time that the power fluctuations were tripping our electronics, the strong winds were in the process of blowing the leaves off of the trees.  Many of these leaves were going into the tanks and then being sucked down to the bottom by the water current and slowly covering over the screens that let the water out of the tanks. 

At 05:45, when the last alarm of the night went off, we got up to find that every tank was overflowing through the overflow screens that are near to the top of the tanks.  

Our effluent channel that runs between the tanks was clearly plugged as well, as it was well over the top of the channel and flowing like a river between the tanks.  

When we went downstairs we found that our boot room and feed shed had about six inches of water in it. I opened the garage door out onto the road that goes around the hatchery and the water rushed out pulling our garbage can and recycling bins out with it.  I then opened one of the side doors out to the effluent channel and water rushed in; it was much higher out there.  Jason headed out to attempt to clear the effluent channel screen and ended up wading through several feet of water.  I radioed the rest of our crew, who were staying down on the barge, and it was game-on for all of us.  It was a long hard morning, but also quite the sight to see.  When we finally got all of the screens cleared and the water levels back to normal it was close to lunch time and we were all very tired.  This was day three of our shift.  

It was a tiring start to our shift, and with more strong winds we had minor repeats, but all went well.  We managed to keep a steady supply of fish going to the vaccination team and never kept them waiting.  

This shift, however, was to be Jason's and my last shift with Mowi.  On our last Tuesday we gave our required one-week notice.  I will not go into the full details as to why we left, but I will say that in the year and a half that we had been with the company, it had really gone downhill.  The site manager of almost 20 years was still great, but upper management had taken away much of his input and authority as manager.  They did not listen to him and did not seem to care about their employees.  I had been doing the supervisory position since May 11, 2021 and yet I had not yet been paid for the position.  Upper management was unaccountable and dishonest, and Jason and I had had enough.  It was a great experience working at the Ocean Falls hatchery, we learned a lot and had a lot of fun, but unfortunately times had changed and we are happy that we are no longer there.