N coal port expansion was approved by the port of Metro Vancouver primarilry to ship US coal from the Powder River Basin to Asia.
Surrey Fraser coal terminal approved by Port Metro Vancouver
Federally-run corporation grants permit for new Fraser Surrey Direct Coal Transfer facility
Port Metro Vancouver has granted a permit for the Fraser Surrey dock to be expanded to export four million tonnes of coal per year, saying it will not harm the environment or local residents.
The project has run into fierce opposition from local municipal governments, environmentalists, residents and other groups, who have raised concerns about the terminal's potential harm on the local air quality and global greenhouse gas emissions.
But port officials say the project has been revised to include new measures to reduce coal dust escaping from trains and barges, and a ban on the storage of coal at the facility.
The proposed facility will transfer coal arriving from the U.S. on rail cars to barges, which would then carry the coal to nearby Texada Island to eventually be shipped to Asia.
The $15-million project is expected to create 25 direct and 25 indirect jobs.
The port notes coal is already the most heavily traded commodity at the port, and the amount shipped from the new facility would represent only a 10 per cent increase.
That would make Vancouver the biggest coal port in North America with most of the coal being shipped through the notoriously dirty Westshore Terminal. This terminal expansion on the lower Frazier River is about 80 miles southeast of Texada Island. This means that the coal coming through this new terminal could affect salmon runs on the Fraser River. The Westshore Terminal has created a dead zone in what had once been a part of the biologically rich Fraser delta. The Fraser River is one of North America's great rivers. Upriver is an island formed by one of the river's meanders named after my great-great-grandfather so it has a special place in my heart.
This will also increase the coal train traffic through the populous Puget Sound area and the Columbia River Gorge.