Hazardous LNG Tankers Every Day on the Fraser River and the Salish Sea? The Governments of Canada, B.C. and Delta are ignoring international safety standards as they push for a massive LNG operation at Tilbury Island, 21 km up from the Fraser River estuary.
Timeline:
May 7, 2015: The National Energy Board of Canada grants WesPac Midstream-Vancouver LLC (an American company) a 25-year licence to annually export 3.5 million tonnes of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from a planned LNG terminal at Tilbury Island. It permits LNG tankers to sail virtually every day along the south arm of the lower Fraser River, the estuary, Burrard Inlet, and through the Salish Sea.
That decision ignores international LNG safety standards published by the Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators. These standards warn against locating very hazardous LNG Terminals and related tanker traffic in narrow, winding rivers, and highly populated areas such as Richmond and Delta. Read or download the report below by Anita Den Dikken.
May 22 – June 24, 2015: The federal government invites public comments on the need for an environmental assessment, and if the assessment could be a BC Substitution process covering both BC and federal assessment laws.
Over 1,000 comments were received, but none are publicly posted, nor addressed in the assessment process. So it was never disclosed that the public clearly rejected the BC Substitution process and called for a federal Review Panel Assessment of all Tilbury LNG operations.
We believe this information was deliberately buried so that a British Columbia Substitution Assessment could proceed. By approving the B.C. Substitution process, the federal government is avoiding a proper cumulative effects assessment and federal accountability to energy laws, shipping and safety on federal waterways, fish protection, species at risk, and damage to the environment from dredging and construction in areas of irreplaceable habitat.
This is potentially BC’s most hazardous project ever in terms of human safety, river and air pollution and climate change.
Nov. 20 – Dec. 21, 2015: A second round of public comments are invited. Again, none of the 791 comments are appropriately posted or incorporated. The public is again denied access and meaningful participation as required by law.
We believe that the Government of Canada is blatantly violating its own Canadian Environmental Assessment Act for perhaps the most dangerous project ever approved in BC in terms of safety in a highly populated region. Furthermore, pollution and degradation of the environment will lead to irreversible loss of internationally-significant habitat for 5 species of salmon, endangered species such as sturgeon and southern resident killer whales, and Canada’s “Number One Most Important Bird Area”.
For more details on our governments’ failure to respect their own laws and due process, read or download the full report by the Boundary Bay Conservation Committee below!
BC Green Party
Delta South Riding Association
September 2022
Based in the electoral riding of Delta South, British Columbia, Canada, Greenflix.ca was created to amplify important local issues that resonate with the six fundamental principles of Green Parties everywhere through informative films and documents on this website.
Our primary interest is major issues not reported by mainstream media (the document above on this page is a good example).
We welcome respectful public comment related to global issues, particularly those affecting our South Delta community. We also welcome any suggestions for us to post aligned films or public-access documents on this site.