We’ll soon know the recommendation regarding a major project that will change the landscape of South Delta.
An independent federal review panel is expected to submit its recommendation this month on the proposed Terminal 2 project for Roberts Bank, a new three-berth container facility that would be built on a man-made island adjacent to the existing port.
It’s been undergoing a formal assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act since the application was formally submitted five years ago with an environmental impact statement.
Saying they’ll see the report when it’s made public to everyone else, port president and CEO Robin Silvester noted they should know what the panel has to say anytime between now until late April.
“Where it goes from there, it goes to the minister of environment and they then have a timeline of five months to make a decision,” said Silvester.
The Port of Vancouver says independent forecasts show that West Coast container ports will be full by as early as the mid-2020s and therefore unable to accommodate growing trade, which “will have far reaching consequences to the Canadian economy.”
In March 2015, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority filed an for the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. An environmental impact statement is a report that provides information about a project and summarizes potential impacts and benefits of a project on the environment
The port recently released its 2019 year-end statistics for cargo which found that, overall, cargo through the port was 144 million metric tonnes for the year, down two per cent from the 2018 record of 147 million metric tonnes, but the second highest in port history.
While some sectors experienced declines, including foreign petroleum products and domestic forest products, they were offset by record growth in others including potash, grain and containers.
Silvester noted the port saw strong trade growth through during the first half of 2019 that reached record levels, but a softening in the back half due to various issues affecting global markets.
The group Against Port Expansion, meanwhile, continues to lobby against T2, saying a new peer-reviewed study by internationally recognized experts in wetland ecology has confirmed what Environment Canada scientists have been saying that the important ecosystem integrity of Roberts Bank risks being destroyed by further port development.
APE’s Roger Emsley, BC Nature’s special representative for Roberts Bank, says he made an access to information request to the federal government last fall because he was aware that there was political interference with the science.
“Eighteen months later and I have still not received any material,” he said in a news release.
“Now I am being told I will not receive anything until mid-April after the panel report is published”.
Throughout the environmental assessment of the project, he claimed, Environment Canada scientists have battled the port authority’s partisan, non-peer reviewed science that has sought to downplay the environmental impacts.
The port authority, however, notes that as part of the environmental assessment, the port authority conducted a series of reports and studies to better understand existing conditions at Roberts Bank. Additionally, technical advisory groups were established to gather expert advice on the ecosystem.
“The project is going through the most thorough and robust environmental process that exists in the Canadian framework. It’s a federal panel process and it started way back in 2013 when we submitted a project description report. So, it’s been a long thorough process and through the public hearings the panel gave everybody ample opportunity to put their information on the table. So, it looks to me to be the most very thorough process and complete level that exists in Canada, and we’ll wait to see what the panel has to say,” added Silvester.
