Category Archives: Urban & Transport

Chilliwack Resident Angry at Province’s Incinerator Approval

Urban & Transport,
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Read this letter to the editor from local resident Taryn Dixon in the Chilliwack Times, expressing her concerns over the Province’s recent approval of Metro Vancouver’s waste plan, which opens the door to incineration.

“It’s easy to see how polluted the air in the Fraser Valley already is,
all you have to do is look at the mountains on a sunny day. Some days
you can’t even see them. We all need and should have a right to breathe
clean air, and I don’t believe we can afford to add a new source of
pollutants into our fragile airshed. I don’t want to be breathing any of
Metro’s garbage.” (Aug 18, 2011)

http://www.chilliwacktimes.com/technology/Dismayed+over+incineration/5270367/story.html#ixzz1VQTV9xAi

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Public transit in Portland, USA

Shades of Green: Local Communities and Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Climate Change, Urban & Transport, , ,
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Responsibility for reducing carbon dioxide emissions is falling to cities, municipalities and regional districts because wider efforts during the last 30 years to ameliorate the threat of global climate change are not working. Multiple negotiations sponsored by the United Nation’s have been unsuccessful. Developing nations such as China, India and Brazil are determined to follow the destructive example of industrialized countries which, in turn, are reluctant to risk economic advantage by reducing their emissions.

Canada, under the Harper government, is so disconnected from climate science that it seems to live in parallel and separate universe, one that systematically obstructs reduction efforts, assiduously suppresses climate change discussions, silences climatologists, shrinks relevant federal research programs, pushes for greater oil and gas production, and abets coal exports. BC’s government is only marginally better.

The situation is moving from serious to critical, according to the International Energy Agency that monitors global CO2 emissions. Emissions in 2010 broke a dubious record – 30.6 billion tonnes (Gt or gigatonnes) or 1.6 Gt over 2009’s 29.0 Gt. The 5.52 percent increase was also unprecedented, representing a nearly unbroken succession of yearly rises – the so-called “Great Recession” cut 2008’s 29.3 Gt to 29.0 Gt in 2009 (Guardian Weekly, June 3/11).

Climatologists warn that we cannot exceed 2.0 C without invoking “dangerous climate change”. To maintain any reasonable measure of safety, they estimate that 32.0 Gt of carbon dioxide is the maximum we can emit by 2020. However, if present trends continue, we will reach this threshold 9 years early, “making it all but impossible to hold warming to a manageable degree” (Ibid.). The end of this century, therefore, could see average temperature increases of 4.0 C or more, about 6 times the temperature increase from the Industrial Revolution to the present. (Climatologists calculate that 32.0 Gt per year is not a safe level of emissions but the maximum before they must gradually be reduced to zero. Even during this transition we risk inducing serious climate change and destroying the marine ecology with fatal acidification.)

CO2 emissions are the key environmental force affecting almost every other corrective environmental action we undertake. We cannot restore wild salmon runs if rivers are too hot for fish and oceans are too acetic for marine life. We cannot protect endangered ecologies if temperatures rise above levels species can tolerate. We cannot sustain agriculture if the weather is too extreme for crops. We cannot cope with displaced people if hundreds of millions are fleeing rising oceans, drought, floods and unprecedented storms.

Unlike the federal and provincial governments that have been incapable of reducing CO2 emissions, cities, municipalities and regional districts are closer to the grassroots of communities. Their smaller size allows them to be more responsive and manoeuvrable, better able to initiate the many incremental reductions that can have a huge cumulative effect on total greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, this is what many of them have already done. And given the overall severity of the emissions challenge, this should be the primary guiding principle of all local planning and development.

Several helpful options exist. First is to increase population density downtown. This concentration of people has multiple advantages, all of which are efficiencies that directly or indirectly lower CO2 emissions. Walking, biking or using public transit reduces the need for cars, long commutes from the suburbs, and the costly matter of building roads and servicing dispersed properties. As collateral benefits, city centres become more vibrant, social, interesting, healthy and safe. Public services such as schools, hospitals, libraries, water, sewage and law enforcement are easier and cheaper to provide. Think medieval towns and cities. Their efficiency has been tested and proven during the centuries before we had the energizing power of fossil fuels.

Garbage is a topical problem these days as landfill sites fill and methane escapes from existing dumps – methane is a greenhouse gas about 20-times more powerful than CO2. Burning is probably the worst option for garbage disposal because it emits CO2 and innumerable toxins. Expensive incinerators also commit communities to long-term agreements and eliminate better options as they come available. The best option is careful household streaming of garbage that can then be composted, recycled or stored. Sophisticated technologies such as anaerobic digesters and thermal depolymerization can process waste into reusable materials, thus creating useful heat, oil, gases and solids that can substitute for non-renewable resources.

The two communities of Campbell River and the Comox Valley both have problems with coal, the former with Quinsam Coal that is almost certainly polluting an important watershed, and the latter with a proposed Raven coal mine that will inevitably cause similar environmental problems if it is allowed to proceed. But the fundamental problem with coal is that it is a dirty and polluting fuel. When burned, coal emits toxic materials that compromise human health – every year coal kills 13,000 American prematurely, incurring $100 billion in health costs – and it is the major global source of carbon dioxide emissions. Coal mines are also a source of methane – whether surface or underground, they are essentially open methane wells that release large quantities of this harmful greenhouse gas. If less coal were mined, this would force up its price, thus encouraging efficiencies and cleaner alternatives.

Climatologists warn that we are reaching a critical tipping point in our misadventure with fossil fuels. If senior governments are not capable of curbing greenhouse emissions, then the responsibility for corrective measures falls to local communities and individuals. Given the evidence of all other failures, this is the place where important change must begin.

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A father and daughter in Tsawwassen plead in vain with Gordon Campbell to build safer power lines through their community

Why the BC Liberal Government Doesn’t Value Your Life

Canada, Politics, Urban & Transport, WATER, Western Canada, , , ,
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There are many instances I’ve come across in the past number of years which suggest to me the Campbell/Clark Government places no real value on the lives of its citizens – this despite Premier Clark’s “families first” motto.

That’s a bold claim, I know – which is why I’m going to state my case here, drawing on several specific and egregious exhibits. I will not pretend to be detached – for me, the subject matter at hand could not be more personal.

Exhibit A I touched on in a piece last week about the South Fraser Perimeter Road. Amongst the 2,000-plus page documents for the proposed truck highway submitted in 2006 by the Ministry of Transportation – under the direction of then-Minister Kevin Falcon – is the acknowledgement that air pollution from the SFPR would result in increased human illness. The route passes within 500 meters of up to 16 schools in Delta and Surrey, many of them elementary-level, where young children stand to bear the brunt of these health impacts.

The document went on to find a silver lining in all this anticipated misery (this little gem is courtesy of the Delta citizen who actually read all 2,000-plus pages of the submission, Mr. Don Hunt):

“With increased air pollution there can possibly be increased employment (e.g., in the health sector) because of the economic activity associated with correcting the results of its impacts.” (Technical Volume 16, page 39)

I bring this up again – as I have on several occasions in videos and articles over the past four years – because: a) it is just so damned outrageous; b) I believe it epitomizes an attitude that pervades this Campbell/Clark Liberal regime (the above are the words of a civil servant, but it’s the minister and his government with whom the buck stops – it is they who established the culture from which this appalling thinking sprang and who ultimately signed off on its inclusion in the document).

I also bring it up again because, to my knowledge, it has been published only once int he mainstream media – in an article by the Province’s Brian Lewis in 2007.

Exhibit B also involves then-Minister of Transportation Kevin Falcon (if I leave the impression here that I don’t much care for this man, it’s only because I don’t).

Also back in 2006-2007, Mr. Falcon and his ministry went further beyond the pale in events and statements surrounding the protest of a highway through a unique and sensitive ecosystem at Eagleridge Bluffs in West Vancouver. While dozens of citizens, including a number of grandmothers such as the tireless Betty Krawczyk, were being dragged off to jail and threatened with absurd charges of criminal contempt of court by the corporate lawyers of an American construction giant, Peter Kiewett, Mr. Falcon made the following statement at a meeting of the Lower Mainland Municipal Association:

“The Chinese don’t have the labour or environmental restrictions we do. It’s not like they have to do community consultations. They just say ‘we’re building a bridge’ and they move everyone out of there and get going within two weeks. Could you imagine if we could build like that?”

(The answer to Mr. Falcon’s question is Yes, with surprising ease).

This apparently drew chuckles, as it was, of course, said only in jest. I’m sure the Eagle Ridge protesters found it hilarious.

Working as a corporate video producer at the time, I became increasingly disturbed by what I was hearing out of Eagle Ridge – which finally prompted me to take my camera out to West Vancouver and spend several days in the yet-to-be-destroyed forest with some of the brave souls who sacrificed and risked so much to protect that magical place from unnecessary destruction (they were pushing for a tunnel route under the ridge, backed by some of the world’s top transportation engineers as a safer, cheaper, far more environmentally acceptable alternative to the overland route).

What followed was one of the saddest incidents I’ve witnessed, frankly, in my life.

I was in court the day Squamish First Nation elder and protestor Harriet Nahanee stood up to Madame Justice Brenda Brown and informed her that her court had no jurisdiction over Ms. Nahanee or her unceded ancestral territory, upon which she was protesting its wanton destruction.

Shortly thereafter, Madame Justice Brown sentenced a frail 71-year old Ms. Nahanee to two weeks in jail for contempt of court. Ms. Nahanee’s counsel and physician warned against incarceration for health reasons, but their pleas were ignored.

Once jailed at Surrey Pre-Trial Centre, Ms. Nahanee quickly contracted pneumonia and died a week later, after being belatedly evacuated to St. Paul’s Hospital.

I want to be clear that I cannot publicly impugn the court – for legal reasons, but even more so because I take the big-picture view. Everything about that highway and the conflict that arose from it stemmed from this Provincial Government – and that is where the blame lies.

Reflecting back today on these events from five years ago which first drew me into the world of environmental politics in BC and irrevocably changed my life, I think that more than the environmental destruction, it was the sheer indecency of the situation that boiled my blood. It was the skulduggery of a callous, even immoral government that compelled me to start putting my talents to better use.

Finally, for Exhibit C, we return to the town of Tsawwassen in Delta – perhaps this government’s favourite of all punching bags. These fine people have been subjected to so much crap over the years, it’s a wonder they keep soldiering on the way they do. In keeping with my theme of this government not valuing the lives of its citizens, I must raise the battle over high voltage power lines through Tsawwassen that culminated in the summer of 2008.

The community was concerned about the health risks associated with the electromagnetic radiation (EMF) that would emanate from new high-voltage power lines set to pass right through the backyards of some 150 homes and over the grounds of the local high school. All they asked was for the government to properly bury and shield the lines – a far safer method, one which studies they paid significant sums of their own money to retain showed would be very comparable in cost to the overhead method.

There is much debate about EMF, which is why these citizens were calling for the Precautionary Principle to be applied (now that the World Health Organization has recognized EMF as a 2b possible carcinogen in a recent landmark report, there is even less scientific doubt as to the legitimacy of these concerns).

Some 2,500 citizens from this small community gathered one weekend at the high school to demand the government bury the lines. Among the expert speakers and community leaders they heard from was the head of Childhood Leukemia at Children’s Hospital, Dr. Jason Ford. Here’s what he told the crowd:

“Since this whole power line issue has come up in Tsawwassen I’ve had a lot of questions from people here, ‘Are my children going to be at risk?’ And I have to tell you that I don’t know – and the sad thing is that nobody really knows. This is an area of great controversy and intense research in the medical field…And the safe thing, when you don’t know, is to bury the lines.”

In the heat of the public backlash during that intense summer, Gordon Campbell summed up in a television interview his decision to ignore the community’s request – with the cold-eyed precision of a Swiss banker:

“The BC Utilities Commission said that we have to do what’s most cost-effective, so they are going ahead with that line.”

Most cost-effective. That’s it. Sorry, ma’am, we would have saved little Billy from cancer but the bean counters couldn’t make the business case.

Under no circumstances would this excuse pass muster with any reasonable, moral person – even if it were true…But it wasn’t.

First, Campbell pretended as though the BCUC and the BC Transmission Corporation building the lines weren’t already doing exactly what they were directed to do by him. Second, it didn’t prove to be more cost-effective – not by a long shot.

Taxpayers’ dollars were first used to spy on, intimidate, and harass though the courts women and children of the families who spoke out loudest against the lines. An expensive offensive was waged against them involving camera crews, police, helicopters, lawyers, round-the-clock work crews on overtime and a massive public relations effort.

And in the end, the government bought up many of the houses affected by the lines from families driven from their neighbourhoods of many years and flipped them at a loss of tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars to new families willing to take the risks or oblivious to them.

There was nothing cost-effective about the program. Nor was there anything humane or moral about the way Premier Campbell behaved.

Of course, a very similar issue of electromagnetic radiation connected to new BC Hydro equipment has reared its head of late – that being the “smart” meters now provoking widespread public outrage.

Once again this government and BC Hydro are playing fast and loose with the available science and the health of British Columbians. Energy Minister Rich Coleman recently brushed off citizens’ concerns with the following claim: “The smart meters are outside the home, and their emissions are one hundredth the power of a cell phone. If you stand next to the meter for 20 years, the radiation is the same as a 30-minute cell phone call.” This is all post-WHO report acknowledging the serious cancer concerns with EMF…But we’ll deal more with “smart” meters in subsequent columns.

I’m sure many of you have other worthy examples to add to the above list, from Bill 30 to Fish Lake, our appalling record on child poverty, mental health care, the Downtown Eastside – take your pick. Feel free to share them in our comments section and we’ll compare notes.

I therefore rest my case for now and leave it to readers to judge for themselves whether this gang deserves the privilege and responsibility of serving the people of BC for another term.

There is no doubt in my mind the Campbell/Clark Liberals care very much about your vote – just not the person casting it.


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Archeology work being conducted at the ancient Glenrose Canary site in Delta in the ealry 1980s (Delta Museum and Archives)

A Thoroughly Uncivilized Highway: Paving Ancient Burial Sites Just one of SFPR’s Many Insults

Urban & Transport
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An aboriginal-led lawsuit is the latest potential roadblock for the highly controversial South Fraser Perimeter Road – an 80 km four-lane truck highway from Deltaport to Surrey in the early stages of construction.

Lawyer Jay Straith is representing Tsawwassen First Nation member Bertha Williams and William Burnstick from the Cree and Sioux Nations as they sue the provincial government for knowingly violating its own laws regarding heritage sites and burial grounds.  Straith recently obtained a leaked provincial government report – titled “South Fraser Perimeter Road Archeological Assessment” – which contains warnings from its own archeologists that the route would disturb 8,000-10,000 year old First Nations burial sites and artifacts along the river, particularly in the area of the old Glenrose Cannery.

Straith told CTV News, “If this was going through a Christian graveyard, a Jewish graveyard, an Islamic graveyard, all hell would be breaking loose. It’s going through a First Nations graveyard that goes back thousands of years, and they seem to say, ‘It’s not an issue.'”

Straith is suing the provincial government for violating its own BC Heritage Conservation Act. He will be seeking an injunction to halt construction, as work is just now underway to demolish the old cannery and excavate the site. The act states:

“No one is to damage, excavate, dig in, desecrate or alter a burial place…or a site that contains artifacts…or other physical evidence of human habitation or use before 1846.” (Section 13-2)

As co-plaintiff William Burnstick told media at a recent press conference, “They’re completely aware of what they’re doing and they’re doing it anyway.”   

Some three years ago now I spent an afternoon at the Glenrose site, beneath the Alex Fraser Bridge, to hear about the impacts of the SFPR on ancient artifacts. An archeology professor from UBC reaffirmed the rich cultural value of the location, as did members in attendance from the Musqueam Band – who have unfortunately decided to bite their tongue this time around, ostensibly for political reasons.

The destruction of priceless archeological and heritage sites is just one of the many knocks against this preposterous highway. A number of years ago a friend of mine, Greg Hoover, and another gentleman, retired road builder Olav Naas, together proposed an alternate route that was clearly far too sensible for this government to appreciate (or lacked the sweetheart land flip deals the SFPR brought for their pals – more on that later).

The Hoover-Naas Route would have used an existing rail right-of-way, thus requiring virtually no farmland be destroyed, and would have traveled at some distance from the schools and residences the SFPR passes close by, thus minimizing the health impacts of air pollution from trucks (the government’s chosen SFPR route skirts a dozen schools and thousands of people in their homes). Among the gems buried deep within the government’s own 2,000-plus page submission for the project to the BC Environmental Assessment Office was this little nugget:

“With increased air pollution there can possibly be increased employment (e.g., in the health sector) because of the economic activity associated with correcting the results of its impacts.” (Technical Volume 16, page 39)

No, that’s not a typo. Your government also knows it will make people sick from increased air pollution emanating from a poorly planned highway, but – wait! – there’s a silver lining: the heath care industry will make more money treating those sick school children and the elderly!

Moreover, both the local Scientific Advisory Panel charged with overseeing Burns Bog conservation program and the federal Ministry of Environment concluded the highway would have disastrous impacts on the health and very survival of the Bog – critical to the Fraser River’s ecosystems and the region’s carbon emissions and air quality. The federal agency called these impacts “significant and irreversible” (that’s scientist-speak for really, really bad).

This is of course on top of the considerable increase to the region’s carbon emissions from the highway and the some 1,000 acres of farmland that stand to be lost, in reality (far more than the government cares to admit).

Above all, according to Mr. Naas – a retired Delta-based construction manager who has more experience building in the area than anyone (he oversaw the building of the George Massey Tunnel and the rail line south of Burns Bog) – building in or around the bog is pure folly. The billion-plus price tag given to the project is laughable when you consider what’s involved in building through bog lands whose depth varies wildly throughout. By Mr. Nass’ own calculations, parts of the road could take well over a decade to complete, due to the enormous amount of pre-load material they will likely require.

And here’s the topper: all along the route, pals of the Liberal government have got sweetheart deals flipping land to be used for the highway at huge profits. One such lucky Liberal supporter, Vancouver lawyer Jeffrey Merrick, made a cool $1.9 million profit in under a year, selling a piece of industrial property near the Bog to the government one week before the project’s official announcement in 2005 – while ninety year old ladies who pioneered the community (I interviewed them at the time) were left twisting in the wind, wondering for years what was to become of their homes, before being forced to sell at bargain prices.

So you see, everything about this road stinks to high heaven – not the least of which is the blatant disrespect for ancient cultural artifacts, burial grounds and our own laws governing the protection of them. These are the crass depths to which our BC Liberal government is dragging us.

But this latest legal action – not to mention the sorry financial state of this government, coupled with the severe construction challenges that await the project, still at a very early stage, relatively speaking – offers yet another opportunity for the public and courts to take a long, hard look at this highway and scrap it before more damage is done.

To those who would say it’s a done deal, recall that both the Spadina Expressway in Ontario and the 1970s freeway slated to wipe out Chinatown, Gastown, Strathcona, huge swaths of downtown Vancouver and its waterfront were well under construction when the plug was pulled due to strong public opposition. As someone who lives in a hundred year-old heritage building that wouldn’t be here today were that highway to have gone through, I, for one, appreciate the fact my forebears didn’t throw in the towel as soon as the backhoes started digging.

Lesson: The SFPR is far from built (really far, if you listen to Mr. Naas) – so take your pick of reasons to shut it down. I suppose trashing a 8,000-10,000 year-old archeological site is as good as any.

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Emergency Oil Reserves Tapped: Conservation Plan Gathers Dust

Climate Change, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Urban & Transport, , ,
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Last week a global oil emergency was declared and the response rolled out, but almost nobody noticed. The International Energy Agency (IEA) started tapping into member state’s emergency oil reserves, something that has only happened twice before. While the crisis in Libya has removed only a tiny percentage of world oil supply from the market, about 1.5 million barrels a day, IEA member countries agreed to release 2 million barrels of oil per day from their emergency stocks over the next 30 days.
 
So what was the emergency? According to the IEA media release, “the ongoing disruption of oil supplies from Libya . . . threatens to undermine the fragile global economic recovery.”
 
The “economic recovery” the IEA talks about implies the return to ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions, which was only briefly interrupted in 2009 by the global economic disruption following the 2007-2008 oil price spike. What they want to recover is the economic growth that has pushed greenhouse gas emissions to record levels in 2010, setting our planet on track for two real emergencies – run away global warming and economic chaos when the next major oil supply disruption happens.
 
According to a recent IEA report, energy-related carbon emissions in 2010 were 5 percent higher than the previous record set in 2008. Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, was widely quoted ringing the alarm bells about how this means we are on the brink of exceeding 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels – the point at which many scientists believe global warming would spiral out of our control to absolutely catastrophic levels. “Our latest estimates are another wake-up call,” said Birol. “The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2ºC target is to be attained.”
 
We need to learn to burn much less oil sooner or later, so why not take ‘bold and decisive’ action this summer? If the IEA, which represents the wealthiest countries including Canada, was serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and vulnerability to oil price spikes they have a number of options. The most obvious is to blow the dust of their 2005 report Saving Oil in a Hurry which asserts that “In the case of a moderate reduction in oil supplies, a reduction in IEA transport fuel demand of even a few percent could have a substantial dampening effect on surging world oil prices.”
 
The transport sector accounts for over half of oil use in IEA countries and is expected to account for nearly all future increases in oil use. Increases in oil consumption now must come from destructive unconventional sources such as the Canadian tar sands.
 
More and more countries are admitting that major changes in transportation policy are needed to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets. More and more experts are also warning that the peaking of conventional oil supplies will likely lead to a destructive roller coaster of price spikes and economic downturns. Saving Oil in a Hurry lays out measures to rapidly reduce oil demand in ways that could translate into a long-term positive response to both of these daunting challenges.
 
Some of the changes suggested are what was recently tested during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. For example, rush hour bus-only lanes were converted to 24 hour operation on many main streets including Broadway. Lower or free transit fares are also suggested in Saving Oil in a Hurry; during the Olympics many buses operated without fare boxes – offering free transit on a random basis. Increased transit service is also part of Saving Oil in a Hurry the report advocates increasing off-peak transit service including weekends and evenings to capture recreational travel and keeping older buses in service longer to increase peak service as new buses come into service – as was done during the Olympics. All of these measures have been reversed since the Olympics but transit ridership is still significantly higher than before.
 
Other measures suggested in Saving Oil in a Hurry include lowering highway speed limits to 90 km/h, introducing aggressive driving efficiency education campaigns, and converting existing general purpose lanes to high occupancy vehicle lanes.
 
All of these measures could lead into the larger changes needed over the medium and long term. But our governments and international agencies seem determined to waste this perfectly good emergency and make us more vulnerable to the next oil price spike – which could be a big one if Saudi Arabian oil extraction is disrupted.
 
What is really needed to deal with the twin crises of peak oil and global warming is a major transformation of transportation and economic policy. Ensuring that more and more oil and other resources are consumed every year is no longer a sane policy. Either one of these challenges justifies action on the scale of the mobilization for World War II, which saw civilian automobile manufacturing plants converted to military production almost overnight.
 
Transportation Transformation: Building complete communities and a zero-emission transportation system in BC, a recent report I co-authored, proposes taking many of the measures in Saving Oil in a Hurry much further. We envision transit lanes painted on almost every major arterial in BC, lower transit fares, and electricity replacing oil as the fuel for public transit. We also propose rapidly creating more complete communities with much better cycling and pedestrian facilities to reduce the need to travel by car or transit for everyday tasks such as grocery shopping. Longer distance freight and passenger service would be provided by electric trains.
 
We need a declaration of emergency to mobilize the resources needed for the transformation. One opportunity has been squandered, but the next and likely more dramatic oil price shock could be right around the corner. Our governments and institutions seem set to squander the next opportunity for change as well, unless they feel real pressure to face up to reality. You can get involved in creating the Transportation Transformation we need, start by signing up for action updates at www.StopThePave.org.

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Deltaport - yellow indicates third birth (completed 2010), red indicates area of proposed second terminal expansion

Simply No Need for Deltaport Terminal #2

Farmland and Food Security, Food, Species At Risk, Urban & Transport, , ,
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Oh No!  The port propaganda machine is back and here we go again with a barrage of falsehoods.  Consultants are being paid megabucks to convince us that another expansion is needed at Deltaport, Roberts Bank, involving a new terminal with 3 new berths in order to double container capacity.

Increased container capacity expansion at Deltaport is not needed.  Port Metro Vancouver has never done a proper “needs assessment”.  Credible “feasibility studies” were not part of the process for the last Deltaport expansion or the South Fraser Perimeter Road.  Port Metro Vancouver justified construction of the Third Berth at Deltaport – completed in 2010 – with mythical forecasts of increased container traffic.  Even the lowest case prediction of 2.8 million TEUs for 2010 was not realized.  The total for 2010 was just 2.5 million TEUs.

Now the spin-doctoring is back.  We are told we need a new terminal at Deltaport because Vancouver container traffic will triple to 7.5 TEUs by 2030.  Well guess what?  B.C. already has enough potential to handle this increase in container traffic if we include the Port of Prince Rupert.  Port Metro Vancouver has the potential to handle 6.7 million TEUs with efficiency improvements and without a new terminal at Deltaport.  Prince Rupert has the potential to expand and handle 5 million TEUs.  That would more than quadruple our current container traffic.

Expansion at Prince Rupert is cheaper for taxpayers as the infrastructure for moving containers across B.C. is already in place.  In addition, expansion at Prince Rupert does not threaten farmland, migratory birds of the Pacific Flyway, resident orcas, and critical Fraser River fish habitat.

The current world economy makes it anyone’s guess just how the container business will unfold.  Canada does not need the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 – now, or anytime in the foreseeable future.  B.C. container ports have capacity to handle container volumes for years to come without damaging the habitat at the mouth of the mighty Fraser.

Port Metro Vancouver is still dreaming about its proverbial ship coming in.  Meanwhile, the managers proceed to build and expand without accountability to the economy, the environment or the public.  You may ask why this is happening.  The answer is simple.  Port Metro Vancouver, associated crown corporations, and government-friendly corporations are accountable to no one.  They plot, lobby, and make deals with our governments to use up public assets and taxpayers’ dollars.  Unlike real businesses, they do not suffer losses because it all falls on the taxpayers.  If the business doesn’t materialize, they lose nothing.  In fact, they make huge profits from contracts, lucrative land deals, rezoning and real estate developments that are associated with port expansion.  Once cooperative politicians and bureaucrats leave their jobs, they find themselves well situated on various Boards and in associated private companies.

In 2009, B.C. Rail spent $15 million of taxpayers’ money to purchase large tracts of the Agricultural Land Reserve along the Deltaport corridor.  This was six years after B.C. Rail had been sold.  A government-friendly non-profit organization has strangely managed to acquire four properties of the Agricultural Land Reserve along the Deltaport/South Fraser Perimeter Road corridor.  One property appears to be a great location for a future rail yard.  Also, the Emerson Group, which specializes in industrial properties, has been purchasing options on Agricultural Land Reserve properties near the Deltaport corridor.  Put all of this, and Tsawwassen First Nation plans, on a map and you will find a blueprint for transforming the Agricultural Land Reserve into an industrial, commercial and residential corridor stretching from Deltaport to the waterfront.

The federal and provincial governments are involved in all these sweetheart deals.  In 2006, the B.C. Government removed environmental protection from 2,852 acres of crown waterlot at Roberts Bank and gave the property to the federal government to be managed by Port Metro Vancouver for port development.  Previously, this environmentally sensitive property surrounding Deltaport was earmarked to become part of the Roberts Bank Wildlife Management Area.  Other give-aways of crown waterlots for port development at Roberts Bank bring the total to well over 5,000 acres.  There are plans to remove another 665 acres of protected waterlot for Terminal 2.

The federal and provincial governments cooperate by paying lip-service to environmental assessment laws.  They offer assistance to crown corporations and ignore excellent reports by government scientists.  Emails from 2004 reveal that lawyers from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans advised Port Metro Vancouver how to avoid an Independent Review Panel of port expansion at Deltaport.  Government agencies are supposed to facilitate an independent assessment, not conspire with proponents.  Thanks to their assistance, the port held a lesser type of environmental assessment.  Concerns raised by the public and government scientists were then easily ignored.

The rubber stamp came out again for the environmental assessment of the South Fraser Perimeter Road.  Both levels of government failed to disclose the important fact that the project would be built on federal lands with species at risk.  This is in contravention of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Species at Risk Act.  The implications are far-reaching as the public was denied due process and Environment Canada was denied any decision-making powers.  Also, in a highly irregular process, an additional environmental assessment addressing the issue of species at risk on federal lands took place six months after the project was approved.    

Mitigation is a joke undertaken by contractors.  Government permits for construction are easily acquired.  Compensation money goes to government-friendly organizations who dabble in environmental improvements which are based on little or no science.  They do not begin to make up for the loss of salmon, orca and migratory bird habitat.  They do not begin to address concerns raised by government scientists during the environmental assessments of the Deltaport Third Berth.

There are no substantive advantages to these developments.  Maybe they will create more jobs but how many of them are temporary jobs paid with money borrowed by taxpayers?  The provincial Liberal Government increased taxpayer-supported debt for transportation by 80% between 2001 and 2010.  Obligations for contracted transportation projects which are taxpayer-supported and supposedly self-supported (i.e. fees, toll, etc for taxpayers) add up to $16 billion. 

Further port expansion at Deltaport is a bogus deal that will be lucrative for a few and expensive for taxpayers.  How can we, in all conscience, do this to the Fraser River estuary where we had plans to protect Canada’s major stopover for millions of migratory birds of the Pacific Flyway?  Despite recognition of the Fraser River delta as the most Important Bird Area in Canada and despite signing three international bird habitat conservation treaties, our governments are willing to forfeit this international treasure and hand over public treasures to be destroyed by unaccountable crown corporations and their friends.

Are we, the people, going to allow this disgrace?

Susan Jones in a longtime resident of Tsawwassen.

 

 

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