— from the Friends of the San Juans
printed Sept. 25, 2015, reprinted upon request–
If all the new and expanding terminal and refinery projects in the Salish Sea are permitted and developed, including projects that became operational in 2014, there would be a 43 percent increase in large, commercial marine vessel traffic.
FRIENDS of the San Juans and San Juan Islanders for Safe Shipping have released the Salish Sea Vessel Traffic Projections featuring 18 new or expanded proposed or recently completed projects, which cumulatively would add an additional 5,300 annual vessel transits to and from ports in British Columbia and Washington State.
The Salish Sea includes the international Strait of Juan de Fuca, Haro Strait, Boundary Pass and southern Georgia Strait; Washington State’s Puget Sound and San Juan Islands; and British Columbia’s Gulf Islands and Strait of Georgia. The Salish Sea also includes critical habitat for species listed as endangered in both Canada and the US including the Southern Resident Killer Whale, Chinook salmon, rockfish and marbled murrelet.
FRIENDS of the San Juans partnered with San Juan Islanders for Safe Shipping to research and create the Salish Sea Vessel Traffic Projections flyer given the lack of current consolidated vessel traffic projections for British Columbia and Washington State.
“These projects all have one thing in common, they transit through the San Juan Islands. From ocean-going container ships, bulk cargo carriers, oil tankers, liquefied natural gas carriers, and underwater pipelines, our inland sea could have a 43 percent increase in vessel traffic. Neither Canada nor Washington is looking at the potential impacts of this cumulative increase. Maintaining clean water is critical to our environment and our economy” said Stephanie Buffum, Executive Director of FRIENDS of the San Juans.
In 2013 there were 12,394 large, commercial vessel transits in the Salish Sea. These vessel transits don’t include the many fishing and pleasure boats that share these waterways with the vessel traffic generated from existing terminals and refineries. In Canada, Port Metro Vancouver is that country’s largest port, the third largest port in North America, and home to 27 major marine cargo terminals. In the United States, Washington State has five refineries and major ports in Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, and Port Angeles. Most of the increased vessel traffic would come from British Columbia (BC), Canada, including four proposed LNG export facilities. The Malahat LNG proposal, south of Mill Bay, BC, also includes the proposed Island Gas Connector pipeline project, which would transport natural gas from Sumas, Washington, over land to Cherry Point, and then underwater through Whatcom and San Juan counties and into BC.
Container ship traffic is projected to increase by a total of 1,300 transits per year. There are two new container terminal proposals and one container terminal expansion underway in Port Metro Vancouver. The ports of Seattle and Tacoma recently formed the Northwest Seaport Alliance with plans to increase their container terminals’ capacity from 3,400,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) to 6,000,000 TEUs per year.
The project that represents the greatest oil spill risk is Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project, which would increase Canadian oil sands crude oil exports from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day. This project’s oil spill risk is compounded by the amount of increased vessel traffic and the volume and type of crude oil cargo, which is more environmentally damaging and more costly to clean up in the event of a spill. Project-related tanker vessel traffic would increase from 120 transits per year to 816 oil tanker transits per year.
The San Juan County Council’s comment letter to Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) regarding the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project states, “We feel this project will benefit few while posing undo risk for those along its route. Our biggest concerns are increased vessel traffic in our waters that increase the risk of an oil spill from collision or running aground. The NEB is looking at this one individual project and its impacts. San Juan County feels this is shortsighted and inadequate. This project does not exist in a vacuum. We urge the NEB with other ministries and US counterparts to examine all proposed marine terminal projects and examine cumulative impacts of increased vessel traffic.”
“We applaud the San Juan County Council for their advocacy on this issue,” said Shaun Hubbard, Co-founder of San Juan Islanders for Safe Shipping. “We hope that the information consolidated in the Salish Sea Vessel Traffic Projections flyer will educate the public and decision-makers, and advocate for the cumulative impacts analyses needed for all the new and expanding terminal and refinery proposals.”
The Salish Sea Vessel Traffic Projections flyer and source information are available at https://www.sanjuans.org/safeshipping/.
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Great to be opposed to increased commercial traffic that would serve a better economy in Washington and BC. There certainly could be a collision or grounding that seriously damages the environment.
BUT one of the principles that this country stands for is freedom on the seas. We have a Navy dedicated to insuring this. How are you going to change this principle to suit your position?
I seriously doubt that all the terminals you add up to get your grand total will ever be built. Using such a total distorts the true picture.
How about taking a reasoned position and not just distorting the issue. You might have a far better chance of success in reducing the risk that you fear.
Tom, Oh dear…do you live here?
I wonder what would happen When The Big Earthquake hits with pipelines on the Sea floor? Tidal Waves Anyone?
Tom, With Freedom,comes Responsibility! With this engorged, obscene business expansion comes Death of the Sacredness, Beauty, Health and Joy of, and in, all living things here. I Know that these are infinitely more important than some CEO’s/ governments and their Bottom Lines!
Spirit Eagle
What Mr. Owens misses or conveniently ignores is the fact that all this added vessel traffic brings no direct economic benefit to our islands, but it does bring significantly increased risk to our environment — and by extension our island economy. Thus, on the basis of a pure cost/benefit analysis that economists adore (but I don’t), this added traffic is a losing proposition for our County. I am pleased that our Council members have stood up and vigorously questioned all this maritime activity in our waters and the added threats we are expected to endure to our island way of life.
@ Mr. Owens – what difference does a “reasoned” (ie reduced number of terminals) make if it only takes ONE accident to make the numbers moot, whatever they are. It hasn’t happened – yet. But why invite a spill. And, truth be know, what’s being called “spills” are much more disastrous than that innocuous sounding term.
As Michael Riordan has said, fossil fuel exports to Asia bring no benefit to anyone but the fossil fuel industry, and certainly none to the San Juan Islands or impacted communities near these pipelines and terminals, and in the Salish Sea. But worse, there are so many risks compounded by increased vessel traffic. Agree with what Spirit Eagle says – that freedom comes with responsibility to all life; otherwise, it’s something far darker masking as freedom.
I agree with Tom Owens, the friends consistently use the worst/best case scenarios to push their agenda. Very unlikely that many of the projects will ever be built. Saying that increasing the economies of entire region won’t directly benefit SJ county is, well, let’s just say shortsighted. Yes, I live here.
The economics of energy projects are very different at $30 WTI (West Texas intermediate, the Oklahoma benchmark) than at $60 and higher. Most energy experts are forecasting an environment of low energy prices for the foreseeable future. That means oil exploration and development projects are being scaled back significantly as the energy companies can barely generate positive cash flow at $30 oil, even with significant cutbacks. I think this is the point Tom Owens may be trying to make.
However, the economics of refining cheaper crude are different than the economics of E&P. It is possible demand for refining facilities remains robust as even as drilling collapses. Demand for export terminals is also dependent on healthy export markets, but these long-lived projects are justified over long-term horizons, so the collapse in crude may affect their viability at the margin but some may go ahead anyway.
It seems to me that a reasoned conclusion is that the energy investment landscape has changed significantly in the last two years, and it is fair for Tom to question the assumption that all proposed projects will go ahead, since the projections of shipping traffic are based on a questionable assumption. It should be possible for experts to identify the highest risk projects, and run a several realistic scenario analyses with varying assumptions. After all, that’s what the investment bankers who shop the energy investments do.
It’s also worthwhile considering that the entire energy MLP (Master Limited Partnership) sector, of which Kinder Morgan is a flagship carrier, is under extreme financial pressure, while banks are cutting their lending to the energy sector as the value of proven reserves plummet.
All these factors support the call for realistic projections, rather than just the worst-case scenario, which is not robust statistically. It’s unfortunate how often these discussions resort to ad-hominem critiques rather than objective consideration of the issues.
Oh, and yes, I live here and am hopeful that a reasoned dialogue can preclude a maritime accident of calamitous nature.
Paula, when a “flagship carrier, is under extreme financial pressure”…. isn’t that a recipe for disaster??? Merry
I read this article after reading the Jan 9 issue of “The Economist” magazine. In that issue was repeated a quotation from the esteemed, though sometimes irreverent economist John Kenneth Galbraith, “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology respectable”.
The facilities cited by the press release were proposed when oil prices were from $120 a barrel in 2011 to $100 dollars a barrel in 2014. It is reassuring that the worst project environmentally speaking, the Trans-Mountain Pipeline will not be economically viable until oil prices double as the cost of production for Canadian oil avrages about $68 a barrel. I suspect oil from oil sands is more costly than the average to produce. Paste the below url to see the average cost of production for various countries.
https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20160109_FBC031.png
I agree with several posters that it is very important to have a rational debate on this subject. The fossil fuel export projects likely have the worst ecological dangers and the least direct ecomic benefits to the Washington State and British Columbia economies. Let’s concentrate on those individually rather than scaremongering with outdated forecasts of total shipping.
Paul and Merry, I was using the term “flagship carrier” metaphorically. Kinder Morgan’s financial pressures may affect the viability of KMI’s future pipeline L.P.’s given the challenges of attracting energy investments in this environment of collapsing crude oil prices. Among the worst hit have been the Canadian oil sand producers, which appears to be a fortunate development for environmentalists. With WTI trading below $30, Canadian heavy oil is trading as low as $15, according to some data I saw last week, far below break-even for some heavy oil projects. Pipeline construction is not divorced from the supply-demand pressures crushing the energ sector.
Just a vote for updating forecasts to reflect current market conditions.
Given that even the bean counters at Kinder Morgan will have to share the changing temps, storm events, sea level rise, and myriad environmental consequences of our collective addictions to fossil fuels, I would hope that “a rational debate” would end w/ a conclusion that we’re much better off leaving most of this s**t underground, irrespective of near-term economic issues.
I think the natural gas pipeline to the Malahat gas liquifier plant would be the safest. IF the pipe breaks, the natural gas would be bled off into the air harmlessly. Coming thru our county -San Juan- we could force then to give US a natural gas feed to the islands, which would be a tremendous boon for our people. This would halve the current cost of our electrical heat!jack R Titus
What worries me most in the fossil-fuel transport area is the tankers carrying diluted bitumen from Canadian tar-sands projects. If one of them has a major spill in or near our waters, it will be an environmental catastrophe like nothing we’ve ever encountered. According to official statements recently made by the National Academy of Sciences and the US Coast Guard, first responders will have great difficulty getting close to the spill because of toxic, flammable evaporating diluents. And portions of the sticker parts will likely sink to the Salish Sea floor, where it will be impossible to recover, given the currents and depths. According to Kinder Morgan’s own probably biased projections, the chances of such a catastrophe are not negligible. And they call this Progress.