Request to oppose FSD/PMV coal export via Texada proposal

Request: That the Islands Trust Council direct the Chair to write to the Port Metro Vancouver Board of Directors to express the Islands Trust Council’s opposition to the proposal to export coal through Fraser Surrey Docks, and transport it by barge to Texada Island for storage and then re-loading for shipment to Asia.

I apologize for the very hurried way I have had to prepare this statement. There may be some factual errors, I hope only in minor details.

The coal is from Wyoming and Montana, and is to be exported through Port Metro Vancouver (PMV) because ports on the US west coast either don't want to export it, or need to go through extensive and lengthy environmental assessments before they can. British Columbia and Canada require no such assessment. PMV, a federally appointed board, can give its approval any time it wants. Voters Taking Action on Climate Change, a small grass-roots organization, has raised the issue with the public and with local governments, and PMV has let Fraser Surrey Docks (FSD) do the public relations on the proposal.

New Westminster City Council on Monday, May 27, 2013 unanimously supported a motion to oppose the handling and export of the coal until it is proven to be safe, and they know the effects it will have on the Fraser River, the impact of the coal dust, and potential impacts of barging the coal through the Georgia Strait when gale force winds occur. New Westminster council believes that PMV “has not been able to fully disclose all health and safety data related to this project, including flame retardant solutions needed to stabilize the volatility of this coal.” (Royal City Record, May 29)

The proposal is to ship 4 million tonnes of coal by train to Surrey, dump the coal into barges and tow them to a storage area near the northwest end of Texada Island, where for the past ten years or so small amounts of coal have been stored and shipped from Quinsam Coal near Campbell River.

Coal dust from the train cars and from the barges, as well as the loading and unloading, will escape and enter the environment. Coal dust is small and sharp, and has multiple long-lasting effects on organisms, terrestrial and marine, including fish, whose gills get damaged. Coal's deleterious environmental impact in the marine environment is long-lasting. Coal dust is impossible to clean up on land or sea, and continues to accumulate and persist where it is handled or transported.

The plan is for the amount of coal to be exported to double over the next number of years to 8 million tonnes per year, which would double the number of trains and barges.

BC would get a small number of short-term jobs. Most of them would be in the expansion and preparation of the facilities at Fraser Surrey Docks and on Texada. Ongoing jobs would be limited to supervising the mostly automated unloading of coal from trains into barges at Fraser Surrey Docks, and unloading the barges on Texada, for the storing and reloading of the coal onto ocean-going ships for shipment to Asia, There would also be jobs for the crews of the tugboats, each hauling two barges down the Fraser River and up Georgia Strait and through the narrow and notoriously rough and windy Sabine Channel between Texada and Lasqueti Islands.

Apparently up to four tows, or eight loaded barges a day, would be operating, and the size of the facility on Texada would rival Roberts Bank coal port when it started. (Since its recent expansion it handles about 27 million tonnes annually.)

Canada and British Columbia governments have both given lip service to reducing GHG emissions and reducing climate change. BC's commitment, under the Climate Action Charter, to which the Islands Trust and most other local government bodies have signed on, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent by 2020.

In addition to the immediate ill effects of this coal (and other fossil fuel) export and exploitation, this will mean a large increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and a greater likelihood that global average temperatures will rise by more than 2 degrees, making runaway climate change much more likely. Known and expected consequences will be rising sea levels, increasing ocean acidification and increasing destruction and damage by more frequent and more extreme weather events (which have already been happening for a number of years) including floods and drought.

The governments of both Canada and British Columbia strongly favour and promote fossil fuel energy exploitation, development and export. The reason for doing this is to create financial wealth. Governments charge a pittance for the private exploitation of publicly owned resources. In the short term, corporations and their shareholders profit mightily, while the public gets jobs. The medium and long term consequences -- climate change, sea level rise, ocean acidification, storm damage, flooding and drought -- are not considered. They are what economists call “externalities”. We, our neighbours and our families, and especially generations to come, will bear the consequences of our inaction, of our allowing the sort of proposal that is now being considered and is all too likely to be approved.

In a rational world, there would be not only a complete assessment of the expected and possible environmental effects, but also an assessment of the social and cultural and economic consequences of such a proposal as this.

This proposal is for the receipt, transfer and export thermal coal, used for burning to generate electricity. One of the results, if the proposal goes ahead, will be the continued availability of cheap coal, which will make cheap electricity in China and Korea. This will prolong wasteful use of electricity, and continue to make it easy to manufacture cheap, shoddy consumer goods that are quickly discarded and replaced. It would be far better if we encouraged the manufacture of long-lasting tools and utensils, preferably in Canada using renewable, non-polluting electricity that doesn't dump millions of tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere or leave toxic dust along transportation routes.

We will need to continue to use fossil fuels in the short and medium term, until we develop clean, renewable energy sources, but we must drastically reduce the quantities we burn. We must make sure that the fossil fuels we do burn are used for necessary purposes, and don't leave toxic legacies on the ground and in the ocean, in addition to the climate change effects of using them.

I look forward to your comments and questions, either individually before we gather, or together at Trust Council on Mayne.

Peter Johnston

Lasqueti Island local trustee