When olives fall from the back of the vacuum cleaner, they fall into this water bath. The purpose of this bath is two-fold.
First, the olives are being cleaned off and made all safe to eat, even though they would taste bad. It's also vital for the olives to be clean of any particulants that might have components that are soluble in oil, because they might add off-flavors to the final oil.
Second, and something new that I learned, the purpose of this bath is to warm the olives up (or rather to warm up the oil inside so its much less viscous). The warmer the oil, the less viscous, and the more likely that oil can be separated from the olive mash by time and gravity.
