It's been about six years now since the mill closed there, and as we speak, it's in the background. It's gradually being knocked down and totally disposed of.
If we go back 30 years, a lot of the effluent from the mill was going directly into the river. Since it was a pulp and paper mill, a lot of it was loose fibre that found its way to the bottom of the river and choked off spawning areas and things like that. With the hydro, there wasn't really much concern back in those days for exclusion, to keep the fish from going into the generators and the like. Years ago, the easiest and the most common way to get your fibre, your logs, to the mill was to throw them in the river and let them float down.
Back 15 or 20 years ago, we saw a lot of these things change. With no production anymore, we're not seeing any going in, but even back in those days, once the fish were in the water, then there was a bit of an onus, a bit of a community spirit, I guess, for the companies that were here to do their part in cleaning up. Some very massive effluent treatment plants were installed. Some of the systems there are unique in the world. We just finished entertaining 15 scientists, biologists, from Sweden, because we have some unique systems here that keep the young fish from entering into the generators. It's a diversion system, I'll say.
All of these things here with industry have certainly helped. What we're finding now is that the river is becoming a lot cleaner. The fibres that would settle on the bottom choking off the spawning areas and all that are not there.
Our numbers have steadily increased. The mill has been closed for six years. We are not seeing any great numbers, so I don't think in recent history that there was much damage being done by the power plants, by the paper mill itself. Right now certainly, it would be very difficult to blame what's happening now on what happened years and years ago.