||| FROM SALISH CURRENT |||
The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority has proposed that Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) — a mega project consisting of a new three-berth marine container shipping terminal adjacent to an existing coal terminal — be constructed in Delta, British Columbia.
The building site is about 1 kilometer north of the international border between the United States and Canada, a location well known for its ecological value that lies between a variety of protected conservation areas for shorebirds and other wildlife.
The Salish Sea Institute hosted a webinar about the project last month attended by more than 150 people, with the majority (77%) from Washington and the rest from British Columbia.
Speakers included Ginny Broadhurst, Salish Sea Institute; Derek Moscato, Journalism Department at Western Washington University (WWU); and Natalie Baloy, Anthropology Department at WWU.
The presentations illustrated the challenges of managing an international ecosystem with governments that are accustomed to analyzing projects from a nationalistic perspective and review only the concerns that would occur within their own jurisdictional boundaries.
An extensive environmental review by a Canadian federal review panel clearly illustrates that it will have significant and permanent environmental impacts that include:
- loss of habitat for migrating endangered chinook salmon and other species such as migratory shorebirds
- loss of critical habitat and loss of prey for endangered Southern Resident killer whales
- increased underwater noise in an already noisy ecosystem
These impacts and others are documented in the Environmental Assessment conducted by the Federal Panel. The panel also stated that the many proposed mitigation measures would not go far enough.
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Details about Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project and its impacts are also presented in the Webinar by Salish Sea Institute, linked at the full article. (Time ~8:00 minutes in to about 18:00.) Looking at a map of the Salish Sea, it’s easy to understand that despite the human-constructed borders and boundaries (which of course the orcas and the salmon and the migrating birds at risk know nothing of), this is LOCAL NEWS. The ecocidal effects on the Fraser River estuary are, according to the research, permanent and irreversible.
I was shocked to learn that the E.I.S. conducted for this project, (only one Km from the Wa. St. border mind you) is not, by law, required to include cross-boundary impacts. This is absolutely insane.
If the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 in Canada becomes operational, residents of San Juan County will see an additional 520 additional ship transits through our islands every year.
These will be “Mega-Max” container ships that carry about four million gallons of fuel. They often are one-hull, rather than double-hull vessels.
One oil spill from a collision or grounding could devastate our economy in the San Juans and throughout the Salish Sea.
The project also would severely harm endangered Orca whales and reduce Chinook salmon populations.
The 520 ship transits from this new Canadian terminal just a mile north of the Washington State border would be IN ADDITION to another 500 transits by huge oil tankers carrying tar sands dilbit from the expanded TransMountain Pipeline.
So, in the near future, Orcasonians will see more than 1,000 new ship transits from Canada of huge vessels through our waters each year. One collision or grounding and our lives will be different forever.
“With only 73 individuals left in the wild, Southern Resident orcas are already critically endangered and suffering from a variety of anthropogenic threats that are actively impeding their recovery, including insufficient food, underwater noise and toxic contamination. There is no doubt that RBT2 will put unnecessary pressure on this fragile species by increasing underwater noise in their critical habitat, which will further impede their ability to find food, communicate and travel, while also destroying important habitat for their prey, wild Pacific salmon.
RBT2 will destroy 177 hectares of highly biodiverse habitat, including highly modifying the functional habitat that juvenile and other salmon depend on to survive during their big migration to the ocean and then back to their natal streams and rivers. Destruction of functional habitat changes the use of those lands and waters and is one of the greatest threats to at-risk species and a principal driver of biodiversity loss globally.”
source: https://georgiastrait.org/work/species-at-risk/proposed-terminal-2-deltaport-expansion-2/
It’s not often I’m speechless, but the vomit from realizing the agony this will cause to so many life forms while extincting them is stuck in my throat.
What actions can we take?
It is shocking that this is literally the first I’ve heard of this ridiculous project! Has everyone in BC completely lost their minds? Filling 500 acres of fertile tidelands with dirt? To build a giant parking lot for containers filled with cheap junk from China? What about the runoff from a 500 acre parking lot with literally thousands of trucks running in and out every day? How far above high tide is this idiot project going to be? Not far enough to last more than a few years you can bet! No one in BC government has heard of melting ice and sea level rise apparently!
As usual, local ecosystems and communities are damaged and endangered for the greed of corporations based elsewhere. And it’s all aided and abetted by legalized graft. Where is the BC Green Party? Why aren’t they fighting this?
So frustrating that human conceptual constructs like national boundaries prevent us from having any real say in what is happening literally within sight of our shores! These are the same geniuses that tried to build a natural gas pipeline under the Salish Sea and an expansion of pipelines pumping explosive tar-sands glop from Alberta.
What actions can we take? I wish I knew!
Call or write Debra Lekanoff, maybe she can figure out some way to get Inslee to lean on BC?
https://housedemocrats.wa.gov/lekanoff/contact/
You can’t email Inslee directly apparently. All I can find is this “e-message” form:
https://governor.wa.gov/contacting-governor/contacting-governors-office/send-gov-inslee-e-message
You can learn more about this project and its devestating impacts and the ways in which the BC government ignored its own endangered species act and its environmental policies here: https://www.againstportexpansion.org/.
In August of 2020, Jay Inslee was asked by 41 Organizations (including Friends of the San Juans) to oppose the Terminal on behalf of Washigton State. He did not. There is so much willful ignorance on the part of the BC government of the damage this will do to our ecosystem. If the Lummi Nation and Canadian NGOs can mount legal challenges to the project (https://globalnews.ca/news/9718120/legal-challenge-robert-banks-terminal-bc/), shouldn’t Washington State stand up and use its voice to oppose this threat?
The capitalists always win. The doubling of vessel traffic is bad enough, but why can’t they just build a terminal on the shore instead of filling in 437 acres (0.6 square miles) of open water?
Interesting piece by a neighbor of the Roberts Bank terminal:
https://salish-current.org/2023/11/20/proposed-roberts-bank-terminal-2-looming-environmental-disaster/
The best news, so far, is that container traffic to the Port of Vancouver terminals is down 17% in 2023 and the economics of this insane expansion are looking worse and worse for the Port. Hopefully the combined voices against this ecological disaster will be heard.
I am disappointed that Jay Inslee hasn’t yet added the voice of Washington to those voices.
Quick straw poll: how many here would be willing / interested to participate in a non-violent direct action against RBT2, for future reference?
Thx.