Texada Island Natural Gas Plant Facing Opposition
“Industrial island” claim fails to calm Texada residents
Opposition is growing on Texada Island to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, and natural gas-fired power generation facility, announced earlier this year by WestPac LNG. The terminal, to be built near Kiddie point, will “re-gasify” LNG from Asia to fuel the plant, and may feed additional gas into a pipeline to supply Powell River and Vancouver Island.
The project will include a marine jetty capable of receiving double-hulled LNG carriers about 300 metres long, smaller capacity barges and tugboats, with transfer piping to onshore LNG storage tanks. WestPac expects up to 36 LNG carriers a year to arrive at its facility, or one every ten days or so, from southeast Asia, the Pacific Rim and the Middle East.
Onshore, there will be two full-containment LNG storage tanks; an LNG re-gasification plant with a capacity of up to 500 million cubic feet per day; in-tank and external LNG export and trans-shipment pumps; a vapour handling system, and pipeline interconnection and compression; and a power generation facility.
The company claims that little will change. It says Texada has been an “industrial island” since before Confederation. However, the magnitude and potential environmental impacts have the island’s 1,200 residents deeply concerned.
The proposed facility will be nearly five times the size of the controversial Duke Point Power project and twice the size of the Sumas Energy 2 project – both projects which were ultimately cancelled or abandoned due to public, and in the case of Sumas 2, government opposition. Yet despite the size of its proposed Kiddie Point facilities, WestPac continues to claim it will require only “minimal new infrastructure” for this project.
Significant global warming impacts can also be expected – it is anticipated that the project would add up to four million tonnes of new greenhouse gases to the atmosphere every year.
Sadly, Texada Island and the Georgia Strait are not the only places at risk from LNG tankers. The BC and federal governments have just approved a plan by Kitimat LNG to build an LNG terminal in Bish Cove, that would require LNG tankers to travel through the treacherous waters of the Dixon Entrance, Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound.
The approval ignores the well-recognized risks that come with LNG tanker traffic.
In BC, we know that shipping accidents are a matter of “when” and not “if”. The barge spill affecting protected orca habitat in the Robson Bight (Michael Biggs) Ecological Park in Johnstone Strait in August 2007 and the tragic sinking of the Queen of the North ferry off Hartley Bay in 2006 – the same route that the LNG tankers would travel – are two of many frightening reminders that accidents do happen. They are also examples that once oil, diesel or other petrochemicals hit the water, there is little we can do to contain and mitigate the environmental and economic damage. Adding LNG tankers only increases the likelihood of a marine disaster, and adds significantly to the potential for devastating impacts. An accident in the fertile Hecate Strait would also severely jeopardize its thriving commercial fishery, sport fishing and fish processing industry, currently valued at 1.7 billion dollars a year.
It was these risks that led the federal and provincial government of New Brunswick to oppose LNG tanker traffic through Head Harbour Passage in southern New Brunswick. The Canadian government has committed to do everything in its power, including a potential legal challenge, to keep LNG tankers out of those waters. Prime Minister Harper himself has spoken out publicly against it. The governments’ rationale is simple – the environmental and navigational risks of tankers in those waters is simply too high.
It is therefore baffling that the federal and BC’s provincial governments are looking the other way when it comes to the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Georgia, as well as Hecate Strait. The environmental and navigational situation is remarkably similar to that of the Harbour Passage. Clearly, the federal and provincial governments are aware, or ought to be aware, of the risks posed by LNG tankers in these waters. What is unclear, however, is why these governments think it is acceptable for BC’s coastal communities to be subjected to this risk.
– Margot McMillan
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