VIDEO – An intense debate about increasing coal exports to Asia from British Columbia focused on Texada Island last week. The Texada quarry, owned by Lafarge Canada Ltd., is the endpoint in a proposal that would see millions of tonnes of thermal coal from the United States exported through the province.
Fraser Surrey Docks (FSD) has applied to Port Metro Vancouver for a project permit to build coal-handling facilities within its existing terminal operations that would allow the direct transfer of coal from trains to barges.
The barges would carry coal through Sabine Channel, located between Texada and Lasqueti islands, to the quarry, where the coal would be stored before transfer to deep-sea vessels for export to Asia. The coal would come from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, delivered to FSD on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway.
FSD forecasts it would handle two million metric tonnes in 2013, increasing to four million in 2014. The coal would be delivered to Texada by barges carrying 8,000 tonnes every two days in 2013, increasing to two barges a day in 2014.
The quarry has an existing deepwater port and infrastructure to transfer the coal onto deepwater vessels. The company already transships coal from the Quinsam mine, located on Vancouver Island, and Coalmont, located just north of Princeton.
Lafarge has applied to the provincial government for a permit amendment to increase its coal storage capability. The company plans to expand the area that is used to stockpile and transship coal. According to the company, the volume of coal that will need to be stockpiled will increase to 800,000 tonnes. While FSD’s application is specific up to year five, the full build-out of the proposal is for eight million tonnes of coal to be exported starting in year six.
Lafarge has submitted a stormwater management plan as part of its expansion plans “to mitigate the potential environmental effects associated with the release of coal sediments into the surrounding marine environment.”
The quarry, which produces raw materials for cement manufacturing and specialty rock products for the construction industry, has three individual loading facilities and an approximately four-hectare foreshore material staging and stockpiling area located on the northwest end of Texada. The intent is to expand the area available for stockpiling materials to about six hectares.
In 2012, total production of quarried limestone and construction materials was estimated to be three-million tonnes. That’s over a 50 per cent drop from 2008 volumes, when the quarry produced between seven to eight million tonnes.
Lincoln Kyne is Lafarge’s project manager, and André Balfe is the general manager of the Texada quarry. They said the operation is not expanding its footprint, but is removing a section of the aggregate plant on the inland side of the stockpile area. The amount of coal it will stockpile will essentially double, Kyne said.
In 2007, Lafarge upgraded its ship loader, which can handle over 10-million tonnes of material a year. Kyne said that capacity is currently under-utilized. “That’s the reason why we’re investigating options to expand our commodities or change the commodity mix that we have,” he said.
The ship-loading facility includes a certified port that comes under the jurisdiction of Transport Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard. “Every ship that comes in travels safely up and down the Strait of Georgia,” Kyne said. “BC Pilots’ Association meet it at Victoria Harbour Station and they have control of the ship at that point.”
The size of the ships varies, Balfe said, but the last one they had at the facility carried 75,000 tonnes.
Currently, the company employs 90 people, a number that includes both management and hourly workers, at the quarry. If the proposal goes through, it expects to create 15 to 20 new positions, Balfe said.
Kyne said that 80 per cent of the work force lives on Texada and 20 per cent in Powell River. He described the new positions that would be created as well-paid and sustainable. “There are studies out there that say for every aggregate job, you can add almost five trickle-down jobs to the community,” he said. “In this case, we’re not purporting that by any sense, but we do, wherever possible, use local contractors for support. Those 90 don’t include the vast number of contractors we use for maintenance, operations, electrical and supplies.”
Kyne pointed out that the quarry has safely stored and transported coal from the foreshore area for over 20 years. In 2013, the company has contracts to handle 1.3-million tonnes of coal. The coal from both Coalmont and Quinsam is thermal coal and it’s exported to Asia. Coal from Coalmont is shipped to the quarry by barge down the Fraser River, then up to Texada, while the Quinsam coal comes on barges across the Strait of Georgia.
The total mine area of the Texada quarry is 829 hectares. The coal is stockpiled on an area that is less than one per cent of the total mine area, Kyne said. “Texada quarry is an active mine site,” he said. “We conduct blasting and crushing on the site and we’ve done safely so for over 100 years.”
The health and safety of its employees is “significantly important” to the company, said Kyne. “We operate under numerous bodies that come in and inspect our mines and our operations here,” he said. “We conduct environmental management monitoring with the ministry of environment, WorkSafe BC and the ministry of [energy and] mines as well.”
The operations are conducted within the standards set by those agencies, Kyne added. “At no time have we had any significant issues with respect to environmental management monitoring,” he said.
The stockpiles are managed in multiple ways, including compaction and shaping the piles, Kyne said, adding there was no issue with respect to coal dust. “All efforts are made to contain the material on the property,” he said.
The coal is treated at the mines with dust-suppression and binding agents, he said, which are approved through the ministry. Those agents are used at other terminals, such as Westshore, he added.
The company is going to put in an updated off-loading and on-loading conveyor system. There will be dust mitigation points at the conveyors, Balfe said, and the coal will be covered at transfer points. “We have water sprayers at certain main transfer points,” he said. “We also have a 15,000 gallon water truck that waters our piles, plus our roads as well.”
Although there is an increase in the amount of coal handled on the site if the proposal goes through, Kyne said, that doesn’t necessarily mean the operation will use more water, because the additional coal is displacing other product now stored in the same area.
The upgrade to the stormwater management plan includes graded ditches surrounding the storage area that will direct water into an infiltration pond. The preferred option for any sediment is to place it back on the stockpile, Kyne said.
There are five water-monitoring wells in the foreshore area as well. The company also works with the ministry of environment, ministry of energy and mines and WorkSafe BC to conduct monitoring of all areas, including air quality. Both PM 10 and PM 2.5 are monitored in the area. Employees who work around the stockpiles wear air quality monitors on their clothing.
What about that coal dust?
Dr. Frank James, a family physician, public health officer for San Juan County in Washington State and a member of the University of Washington School of Public Health faculty, travelled to Powell River to speak at a meeting on Saturday, August 17. About 50 people attended the event, which was organized by Pebble in the Pond, a Powell River environmental organization.
James is one of the founding members of Whatcom Docs, a group of over 200 Whatcom County physicians who are concerned about the health and safety impacts of the proposed Cherry Point coal-shipping terminal in Washington State. They have called for an independent, objective health impact assessment of the project, including the impacts of transporting coal throughout local communities.
BC’s provincial health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, as well as Dr. Patricia Daly, Vancouver Coastal Health’s chief medical health officer, and Dr. Paul Van Buynder, Fraser Health Authority’s chief medical officer, have all called for an independent health impact assessment of FSD’s proposal.
There have been six planned sites for coal exporting facilities in Washington and Oregon, James said, and three of them have been abandoned. The coal port planned for his community would be the largest in North American if it were built.
James, who has also spoken at town hall meetings in Surrey, Delta, Vancouver and White Rock, addressed the health impact of coal dust, which is associated with chronic bronchitis, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, as well as environmental contamination through the leaching of toxic heavy metals.
James also spoke about the impact coal dust has on the marine environment. “One of the biggest things that I would worry about is that the coal dust that comes off [ships and barges] is in and of itself relatively inert, but it blows off the ships and goes in the water and it falls on top of eel grass,” he said. “When it does that, it simply forms a barrier to sunlight and eel grass will die.”
Eel grass is essential because that’s where herring lay their eggs, James explained. “If the eel grass dies, the herring die,” he said, adding herring is the main food source of salmon. “You have to think holistically about this,” he said, showing maps that tracked the decline of herring on the coast.
James also painted a picture of the larger issue, the impact burning coal has on global warming. Coal contains the most carbon of any fossil fuel and, compared with other fossil fuels generating the same amount of energy, results in more climate-warming greenhouse gases. Coal supplies 26.6 per cent of energy use around the world and is responsible for 43.1 per cent of global carbon-dioxide emissions, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
James described how pollution from China was already impacting his community’s water supply. Mercury levels in the water are now so high, pregnant women and children are advised not to eat fish from Whatcom Lake. Scientists have determined that about a fifth of the mercury in the lake comes from China. “We think we’re shipping pollution away, but it’s only one planet here,” he said. “All those divisions between countries and people, that’s a theory, that’s an invisible line that doesn’t really exist. Both infectious diseases and pollution don’t know anything about those lines.”
The coal will be shipped in Cape class and Panamax vessels, James said. “The ships that are the Cape Class are the largest things ever built by human beings that move,” he said. “They have millions of gallons of fuel in them, they are single hull, they have the worse safety record of any vessels afloat, because they’re so big.” As well, James described how the ships burn diesel, which releases small particles (PM 2.5) that affect people’s health.
MLA Nicholas Simons, who represents Powell River-Sunshine Coast, also spoke at the meeting. He said what he resents the most is that the federal and provincial governments have made coal exports a local issue. “They’re creating these battles within small communities that can ill-afford to have them,” he said.
Simons also pointed out that the Sabine Channel has three provincial parks and a rockfish conservation area. “There is no opportunity for the public to say something about that, to ask a question about that, to find out what the impact of a storm and massive coal dust to sensitive environmental values is,” he said.
Texada’s population has declined to around 900 people, Simons pointed out, and 15 jobs are significant for the community. “We can’t pretend that isn’t an important issue for folks on Texada Island, but at the same time they’re as concerned as we are about the global greenhouse gas emissions and the fact that we are going to pay for developing new infrastructure that is going to increase our coal exports,” he said.
Chaos at public meeting
Lafarge held what it billed as a public information meeting about its permit amendment on August 19 at the Royal Canadian Legion in Van Anda on Texada. Over 130 participants attended, many of whom left angry and frustrated that the company chose an open house format.
George Smith travelled from the Lower Sunshine Coast for the meeting, which he said was “chaotic” and a “one-sided propaganda show” designed to be non-functional. “You have a whole bunch of people in the room, nobody can hear anybody else and people ask questions of junior employees of the company,” he said. “You end up with no opportunity for the public, people of Texada, Lasqueti, the Sunshine Coast or anywhere, to actually ask questions and demand answers.”
He is a spokesperson for the Alliance 4 Democracy, which he said is concerned about the lack of democracy in the issue. “The Alliance 4 Democracy is basically saying that we require that our government offer us a real opportunity for input, for a real opportunity for science, rather than just a bunch of baloney, to have an open process that’s not run by the company, but that’s run by respected people,” he said.
Ruth Ervin, along with other Lasqueti residents, also travelled to Texada to attend Lafarge’s meeting. “I’m here not just to represent myself, but on behalf of concerned parents, grandparents and children,” she said. “We’re concerned about the effects of the coal dust transport on marine life, wildlife and on our own health and well-being on Lasqueti Island.”
Ervin pointed out that the meeting was held on a Monday night and there is no ferry service to Lasqueti on Tuesdays. As well, there was no requirement to hold meetings in any other communities. “Who’s going to consider and monitor the concerns that we have?” she asked. “There are many people who would be here if they could.”
Peter Johnston, another Lasqueti resident, said he was concerned because he thought some of the information on Lafarge’s posters was misleading, such as the one that stated coal dust was inert. “It’s not inert,” he said. “They’re misinforming people and people are supposed to make some kind of reaction based on misinformation.”
Mary Leopkey, who lives on Texada, said she was angry because she thought there was going to be a public meeting. “I’m really against this storage of coal here for many reasons,” she said. “Locally, first of all, the pollution of the air, water and the earth. I’m concerned about the shipment of American coal to the Delta area because of danger to the wildlife, Burns Bog and the Fraser River. More importantly, I’m really against the use of coal internationally. . . We should be taking a stand to protect the earth against global warming or climate change.”
Cora and Adrian Sterrenburg live on Crescent Bay Road, close to the quarry. “If there is any coal dust coming, it’s coming our way,” said Cora. “We’re very worried about that.”
As well, the couple feels like the proposal is a step back and that the public meeting was a promotion. “Are we really talking about coal when we know that it is so bad,” said Cora. “It’s kind of an unbelievable thing. Is this reality? I thought we were a long way over coal.”
Paula Brunelle lives in Gillies Bay on Texada. Her husband has asthma and COPD. “Any additional dust or irritants will impair his well-being,” she said. “They can’t give us a number or a level at what point the coal dust becomes unsafe for the environment.”
Jonathan Moser, Lafarge’s director of environment and public affairs for Western Canada, defended the meeting’s format, saying it was designed to be interactive and participants had an opportunity to speak to Lafarge employees individually, as well as fill out a feedback form, which will be forwarded to the ministry.
Moser also said he thought the evening was a great example of public engagement. “We’ve had an opportunity to hear from all sides of the equation and I think that’s all we could have expected,” he said. “The attendance is strong and we’ve had people from all walks of life and all sides of the story that were participating.”
When asked about the impact of burning coal on global warming, Moser wanted to keep the issue confined to the company’s permit amendment aplication and its current capacity to handle coal out of its Texada operations. “Specific to this, it’s not about the burning of coal,” he said. “It’s about the logistics of the shipment of it and we’re one of the partners in this. We’ve been doing this for 20 years safely and we’ll continue to do that.”
Overall, there is still a need for coal around the world, Moser said. “Fossil-fuel dependency is something that is still being worked on and we use the coal ourselves for our own operations at our Richmond plant. It’s not something that’s new in terms of making sure that we get the energy that we need to make our product.”
Government involvement
Ed Taje is the regional manager for the ministry of energy and mines. Although the period for public input into Lafarge’s permit amendment application closed at the end of July, Taje said the ministry is still taking comments and will for a while yet. All comments will be included in the permit amendment file, he said.
The City of White Rock council has passed a motion opposing FSD’s proposal and has requested that Port Metro Vancouver cease consideration of the project. Metro Vancouver directors voted to oppose the facility in June and Vancouver and New Westminster are also opposed.
The Powell River Regional District should have received a referral on the permit admendment application, Taje said, but he was at a loss as to why it didn’t receive one. Once it does, the regional district will have 30 days to respond, which will keep the file open, Taje said.
Taje also said that due to the amount of public concerns raised about the permit amendment, the Inspector of Mines directed Lafarge to hold the public meeting. It was the company’s meeting, he added, and it didn’t matter if the format was a town hall style or an open house.
“My answer to a lot of the questions was our ministry can only make decisions as they relate to the mine and the Mines Act,” he said. “There’s downstream components of the overall thing that we have absolutely no jurisdiction on and I can’t comment on them.”
However, the ministry does have jurisdiction over coal dust on the mine footprint. A monitor program is being worked on and it will be included in the permit. Another area of jurisdiction is water, said Taje, and the ministry is looking at how much water will be used and its source. “Dust suppression on the coal piles doesn’t take a lot of water, a lot less than people think,” he said. “That’s only one component of dust control.”
The ministry is obtaining more information about what is contained in the dust suppression agents, Taje also said, and the impact it has on the marine environment. The permit will include CCME (Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment) guidelines for the protection of aquatic life, Taje added, noting those guidelines become a permit condition.
People who were not able to attend the meeting still have time to comment on Lafarge’s permit amendment application. They should send their comments to the ministry, by email to [email protected].
