Against Port Expansion in the Fraser Estuary BC

Dear Against Port Expansion Community Group Supporters and Members of the Public:
October 13, 2023

Governments Have Betrayed The Environmental Values of the Fraser Estuary

As Executive Director of Against Port Expansion Community Group I write to you, APE Supporters and Members of the Public, after reflecting on the BC Government's  approval of Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2), which effectively ends attempts to stop RBT2 within the federal and provincial legislative framework established to carry out environmental assessments and make decisions. This environmentally disastrous, unnecessary and uneconomic project can still be stopped. Read the letter to find out what you can do to stop the Fraser Estuary from breaching its environmental tipping point.

Read the full letter here:

Governments_Have_Betrayed_The_Environmental_Values_of_the_Fraser_Estuary_APE_Website.pdf

Ecojustice, representing Georgia Strait Alliance, David Suzuki Foundation, Raincoast Conservation Foundation, and Western Canada Wilderness Committee, is in federal court trying to stop the inevitable wildlife destruction were the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project in Delta BC to ever be built. 

https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/news/conservation-groups-are-back-court-protect-southern-resident-killer-whales-devastating-impacts

In particular this project negatively impacts a critical food source for millions of migratory and other shorebirds, puts wild salmon stocks at further risk and as well may push the already endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales towards extinction.

The Trudeau government's environmental hypocrisy was on full display in the federal court on Tuesday June 25 2024, when according to media reports Attorney General of Canada and Ministry of Environment and Climate Change lawyer Jon Khan told a Vancouver Federal Court that legal arguments raised by four environmental groups ignore the enforcement of 370 mandatory conditions that came with the port expansion’s approval.

Khan told Federal Justice Christine Pallotta that the federal government’s decision was a “discretionary one based on the widest considerations of policy and public interest.”

That public interest includes wider economic benefits — like improving supply chain resilience and boosting international trade — and should lead the court to agree the port expansion approval was “justified in the circumstances,” he said.

“Only the governor-in-council, not this court, is equipped to evaluate such considerations,” Khan told the court.

The government’s hypocrisy comes into play when their lawyer mentions the 370 mandatory conditions that came with the port expansion’s approval.

The problem with these conditions is not only that very few of them have any teeth, but in addition the measures frequently call for minimizing, mitigating or reducing potential effects. In other instances federal government scientists have already proven the measures proposed will not work. Here are a few examples of the ineffectual application of these conditions:

        #5. Light mitigation. The current terminal's lighting already causes problems for surrounding residential areas and as well to wildlife. Complaints are always rebuffed with the explanation that workplace rules require certain levels of lighting. RBT2 adds even more lighting and light pollution will only get worse.

         #7 Offsetting plan(s) related to the alteration, destruction or disturbance of fish habitat, and death of fish. What if the offsetting and further mitigation doesn’t work and the already declining salmon stocks are in even more trouble?

         #8 Economically feasible technologies for reducing underwater noise. What if these don’t work or are not economically feasible? Furthermore these conditions fail to take into consideration the additional vessel traffic from other projects such as the Tilbury LNG terminal and the Trans Mountain pipeline. Underwater noise and its detrimental effects on the Orcas will only get worse.

         #9 No net loss of wetlands. Compensation for wetland loss has not worked up to now and there is no reason to indicate this project will be different.

         #10 Protecting migratory birds and avoid harming, killing or disturbing them. One of its key provisions is to create habitat to compensate for what will be lost. Environment Canada scientists have proven and demonstrated that it is not feasible to create habitat on the scale necessary to replace what will be lost.

What the federal government’s lawyer also failed to mention is that the West Coast supply chain has plenty of spare capacity today, with alternatives for container terminal expansion elsewhere in BC when Canadian trade conditions need it - Prince Rupert for example – where, unlike Roberts Bank, there are few if any environmental issues.

Prince Rupert’s container terminal, two sailing days closer to Asia, has been steadily expanding and is ready to add as much as another 5 million in container terminal capacity when the market needs it. Therefore there is simply no justification to add more container terminal capacity in Vancouver, endangering critically important environmental ecosystems. 

The Governor in Council mentioned by the lawyer is Trudeau's federal cabinet. That Trudeau cabinet ignored its own scientists who told them  “Project-induced changes to Roberts Bank constitute an unmitigable species-level risk to western sandpipers, and shorebirds more generally,”

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/02/01/news/feds-quashed-damning-scientific-conclusions-about-port-expansion-birds

These government scientists along with other independent scientists expert in wetlands and wetlands ecology have told the Trudeau government repeatedly that building Roberts Bank Terminal 2 will result in significant adverse environmental effects that will be immediate, continuous, permanent, irreversible and cannot be mitigated. 

Despite this the Trudeau cabinet approved the project as "justified in the circumstances".

This project has been panned by the international media, the latest being two articles in the Seattle Times:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/extinction-risk-to-southern-resident-orcas-accelerating-as-researchers-raise-alarm/ 

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/can-a-tiny-shorebird-stop-the-massive-expansion-of-a-container-port/ 

The UK Guardian Newspaper and the New York Times have also published articles critical of the port expansion.

Not only that but even Canada’s environment commissioner has harshly criticized the federal government’s efforts to help species at risk as “slow and lacking”. Commissioner Jerry DeMarco said poor implementation and application of laws meant to protect species at risk left the job of defending vulnerable species to advocacy groups. 

Canada is yet again in an international embarrassing situation resulting from the Trudeau government’s appalling record in failing to protect endangered environmental ecosystems.

“Can a tiny shorebird stop the massive expansion of a container port?"

That is the title of an excellent Seattle Times article about the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project which you can read here:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/can-a-tiny-shorebird-stop-the-massive-expansion-of-a-container-port/

Here also is a pdf version.

561cbd74-8389-440e-9fa0-e837b2594b28.pdf

In the Seattle Times article the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority (VFPA) states that the port has “plans in place to avoid, monitor and — if required — mitigate any potential impacts stating “This includes locating the terminal in sub-tidal waters, away from sensitive shorebird stopover habitat”.

It is irrelevant that the man made island may be away from sensitive shorebird habitat. It is not where it is but what it does.  As Dr. Elner says, “what are the birds telling us?”

The man made island is already planned to be in sub-tidal waters. But that man made island causes significant adverse environmental effects to the shorebirds' habitat by changing the water temperature and tidal flows and dampening the effects of the fluctuations from salt to fresh and back to saltwater on each tide change. That dampening weakens the salinity oscillation and the diatoms in the biofilm are then no longer shocked into generating rich omega 3 fatty acids. 

Importantly those diatoms impact the intertidal food web, providing essential nutrients all the way up the food chain, from the smallest crustacean all the way up to the largest marine creatures - the whales.  Build that man made island and you weaken the food web such that wildlife populations continue to decline potentially towards species extinction.  It is wilful ignorance and refusal to accept the science that is the crime here. 

Equally the other VFPA mitigations are just as flawed. Government scientists and other independent experts in wetlands and wetlands ecology have proven that omega 3 rich biofilm cannot be created to the extent necessary to compensate for the RBT2 environmental damage. The Brunswick Point biofilm has unique properties and suggesting that biofilm can be created elsewhere, on another bank for example, is flat-earth thinking.

Please share this widely and keep writing to the federal government who have the power to stop this project if we keep the pressure on.

You can write to:

- Steven Guilbeault the federal environment minister at ec.ministre-minister.ec@canada.ca
- MP for Delta Carla Qualtrough carla.qualtrough@parl.gc.ca
- George Heyman BC environment minister at ENV.Minister@gov.bc.ca

One of the conditions (10.4) of approval for the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) project was that the Impact Assessment Agency Canada (IAAC) establish an Independent Scientific Body to provide advice on what are the baseline conditions for the biofilm and salinity on Roberts Bank, to review how the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority (VFPA) plans to monitor them and what impacts RBT2 will cause to biofilm, salinity and Western Sandpipers, as well as to establish threshold exceedences. 

IAAC has now set up the Scientific Body and established its terms of reference. Chaired by Ottawa’s Chief Science Advisor of Canada (who by the way reports to Minister Champagne, an avowed supporter of RBT2) the Body’s has five members in addition to its chairperson. All five of the members are professionals in their field, with three of them coming from universities outside of Canada, one from University of Ottawa and one from University of Calgary. 

You can read the terms of reference here:
https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/document/155471

And its membership here:
https://iaac-aeic.gc.ca/050/evaluations/document/155469

In addition to work performed by these five experts the scientific body is permitted to call in external consultants.

The VFPA has long been trying to duck science-based monitoring because they well realize RBT2 will result in significant adverse environmental effects that cannot be mitigated. So if this independent body is allowed to do its work without interference finally RBT2 will be assessed using credible peer reviewed science.

But the question has to be asked, why is Ottawa still spending taxpayer funds on RBT2?

The Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) project has no entity bidding to build it, no operator wanting to run it, yet Ottawa is still spending taxpayer funds supporting the project. 

How much will all this work cost? The scientific body has a 36-month term. How much are the five professionals going to be paid? What is the budget for external consultants? With the recent debacle over the $59 million ArriveCan project can we expect Ottawa to better control these costs?

More importantly, why would these five independent professionals, all experts in their field, not come to the same conclusion that government scientists have already proven – being the science, facts and evidence show RBT2 will cause environmental degradation to the intertidal food web that will be immediate, continuous, permanent, irreversible and immitigable?

Furthermore why is the scientific body starting its work when there is no economic justification for RBT2 to ever be built?

The VFPA container volumes declined by over 12 percent year over year, handling fewer containers in 2023 than in 2022 and lower than any year all the way back to 2016. Furthermore full container loads were lower in 2023 than in every year all the way back to 2011 – 12 years of declining container trade volumes.

The fully laden container volume increase between 2009 and 2023 approximates to the 600,000 TEU increase in DP World’s Centerm terminal expansion last year, thus VFPA has as much spare container terminal capacity today as it did years ago.

There is no justification for RBT2 now, nor will there ever be in the future.

If the cost of this independent scientific body is what it will take to abandon the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project it will have been worth it. But it would be far better if the federal cabinet finally recognized it made a huge mistake in approving the VFPA Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project last year and shut it down, forever. 

THE Narwhal has just published an article on the latest developments, including an update on the two court cases. Read it here:

https://thenarwhal.ca/roberts-bank-terminal-2-explainer/

Canada’s Commissioner for the Environment continues to highlight the ongoing failure of the federal government’s conservation and climate change commitments. Why is this so? Because repeatedly the federal government – and its Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault - ignore science, facts and evidence and bow to corporate pressures to approve environmentally damaging industrial developments. 

Nowhere is this more evident than the federal government’s approval of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority’s (VFPA) Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2) project, which they approved almost a year ago (with the BC provincial government approving it several months later). 

The government ignored science, facts and evidence put forward by its own scientists, environmental groups and international experts in wetlands and wetlands ecology, all demonstrating that RBT2 will result in significant adverse environmental effects that cannot be mitigated, destroying wetlands and the intertidal food web relied on by millions of migratory and other shorebirds, as well as salmon, other fishes and marine mammals.

This debacle of a government approved project proposes to add container terminal capacity to a port complex whose volumes declined by over 12 percent year over year, handling fewer containers in 2023 than in 2022 and lower than any year all the way back to 2016. Furthermore full container loads were lower in 2023 than in every year all the way back to 2011 – 12 years of declining container trade volumes.

The approximately 600,000 full loaded container increase between 2009 and 2023 is about the same as the Vanterm terminal's expansion last year. 

VFPA relies on fiction to create its forecasts – claiming that its port complex would see 5 percent volumes increases year over year. The reality is VFPA has not increased its volume of loaded containers for 12 years. And during that time VFPA added almost one million to its container terminal capacity.

VFPA does not have a developer for RBT2 nor an operator, yet it is still proposing to spend over $6 billion of taxpayer funds to build another container terminal that Canada will never need, requiring the federal government to spend even more money on environmental studies and research with no economical or environmental justification.