The Mayor of St. Mary’s hopes talk of an election won’t derail their plans to finally have an abandoned and smelly fish sauce plant cleaned up.

The town is reluctantly taking possession of the plant, which has been oozing toxic effluent and emitting foul vapours for years, so that it can access government funding and get the ball rolling on clean-up.

The plant, which contains huge vats of fermenting fish sauce, has been sitting in a jurisdictional limbo for years, with no-one taking responsibility for clean-up of the environmental and health hazard.

Mayor Steve Ryan says the town is now in the process of taking possession so that they can access various levels of government support, and expressions of interest can be issued to finally get it dealt with once and for all.

He has three companies interested in submitting bids for the work. In the meantime, Ryan says there’s been plenty of talk about an election in the near future, and he hopes that doesn’t derail their plans.