INSIDE

Deltaport growth plans open for
comment

By Meg Olson

The public has six more weeks to let the B.C. government know how they feel about the expansion of the Deltaport container facility in Tsawwassen.

Because of the volume of public and regulatory agency comments drawn by the first application for an environmental assessment on the project in the spring, the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) asked the applicant, the Vancouver Port Authority, to take a harder look at four specific areas of concern: air quality, habitat compensation, ongoing monitoring and cumulative effects. At a December 13 open house in Tsawwassen the port unveiled four documents addressing those areas and the EAO opened up the public comment period until January 25.

It was hard to find a positive comment at the open house. “I heard one truck every six seconds,” said Tsawwassen resident Sonia Janzen. “One per minute is what we have,” answered port container development group environmental manager Darrell Desjardin. “Still a lot of trucks,” said Janzen, saying she was concerned not only about traffic congestion but the impact on air quality.

The port’s new reports anticipate the addition of a third berth to the Deltaport facility will only increase intersection congestion by 10 percent and congestion in other areas by four percent. If this project goes ahead, however, the port has plans to add another three berths and a second terminal by 2020. By that time, the report states, B.C. ferries anticipates a 42 percent increase in traffic. “Nobody is really thinking about the massive amount of traffic we’ll have here, what it will do,” Janzen said.

Desjardin said the port was trying several approaches to limiting the impact of the expansion on air quality. “We’re working with the truckers to reduce emissions,” he said. “The port has been a strong proponent of AirCare for trucks.” In B.C. the AirCare emissions inspection program applies only to light-duty vehicles. Desjardin also said the port was cooperating with Environment Canada, the International Maritime Organization and other west coast ports to implement a “sulphur control area” which ships would only be able to enter if they burned higher-grade, lower emission fuels. “Our goal is to see that implemented before this is on line,” he said. They also have plans to convert to shore based power for ships docking at the facility, allowing the vessels to turn off their fossil fuel burning generators.

Liz Gough is with APE, the Against Port Expansion at Roberts Bank group handing out an April report from Environment Canada that predicts the project will have “significant environmental impacts” on Roberts Bank. “It is asking that they take a long hard look at the negative impacts the port expansion would have on the environment,” she said. The Environment Canada report was part of the impetus for a redesign of the project, reducing the project footprint and adding on-site mitigation like rebuilding salt marshes and enhancing habitat. Gough said the changes don’t go far enough. “This is a flimsy assessment,” she said. Gough asked that anyone interested in learning more about her groups efforts should email her at ape.info@dccnet.com.

Jan Hagen, project assessment manager with the EAO, he spent a substantial portion of the open house disputing residents who were angry the expansion was being contemplated at all, or about coal on their patio furniture. “This isn’t about that,” he said. “This is about these four documents.”

Hagen said his office would review the supplemental information in the four newly released documents, as well as all the comments from the public and regulatory agencies pertaining to those documents. “We’re not reopening the whole environmental assessment,” he said.

His review complete, Hagen said he would present his recommendation to B.C minister of the environment Barry Penner and minister of transportation Kevin Falcon. “They decide,” he said. Hagen declined to say when his report would be ready. “It’s totally open,” he said. “There are many issues here that need to be compensated and mitigated for.”
The EAO website at www.eao.gov.bc.ca and provides links to the documents now under review. Comments can be sent to Hagen by fax at 250/387-2208, by email at eaoinfo@gov.bc.ca or mailed to P.O Box 9426 Stn. Prov. Govt, Victoria B.C. V8W9V1.