CHARLOTTETOWN HARBOR, Prince Edward Island, July 24 (UPI) -- A fifth overflow of sewage into Prince Edward Island's Charlottetown Harbor has caused parts of Canada's West and North rivers to be closed to shellfishing.
"The No. 1 priority is food safety," John White of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told CBC news Friday. "We want to make sure that whatever shellfish is being harvested is not going to make anyone ill."
The fishing season for quahog, a type of clam, began a week ago, but more than a mile of the West River's fishing grounds have been closed for most of the summer, forcing fishermen to look elsewhere for their bounty, the CBC said.
Weeks of heavy rains have flooded the harbor's sewer system five times, with no way to stop the raw sewage from being released into the harbor.
"Those events happened a number of times, and we'd have to post and patrol and tell fishermen they'd have to fish in a different area, and that's what's ongoing now," said Bobby MacInnis of the Department of Fisheries and Ocean.
