According to the official reports, 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 shell-fishing.

John White of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told CBC news Friday, "The No. 1 priority is food safety. We want to make sure that whatever shellfish is being harvested is not going to make anyone ill."

The CBC further said that 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.

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.

Bobby MacInnis of the Department of Fisheries and Ocean, said, "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." (With Inputs from Agencies)