Canada’s federal government has approved a controversial container terminal expansion in Vancouver that would double the port’s current size but could have damaging effects for maritime species already on the brink of extinction, environmental groups warn.
The country’s natural resources minister announced support for the Port of Vancouver’s plan – which would effectively double the size of the Roberts Bank Terminal – framing the decision as a way of preventing future backlog.
“More than C$275bn of trade passes through the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority every year,” Jonathan Wilkinson said on Thursday. “By the early 2030s, our ports are forecast to be approaching capacity, and we will be unable to meet forecasted demand.” The planned expansion would eventually increase the annual capacity by 2.4m containers.
But the area is a key habitat for endangered southern resident killer whale, the ailing chinook salmon they rely on for food, and dozens of other at-risk species.
Amid concerns that the new terminal would irrevocably harm the ecosystem, the environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, said hundreds of legally binding conditions will be put in place.
“With 370 environmental protection measures that the port must meet, we have set a high bar for this project to proceed,” he said in a statement, adding the federal government had ordered the Port of Vancouver to contribute C$150m to “guarantee the strict environmental conditions are met and habitats are protected”.
Among the conditions, the minister pledged noise levels would be kept below a baseline to protect the whales. The federal government has also ordered the construction of infrastructure to allow salmon to pass through.
The Port of Vancouver has offered to mitigate the effects of construction by building 86 hectares of habitat to replace the ones Terminal 2 will destroy as part of the 177 hectares that would be developed.
“The panel determination should have signified the end for this harmful and shortsighted project by the Port of Vancouver,” Charlotte Dawe, a conservation and policy campaigner with the environmental group Wilderness Committee, said in a statement. “Instead, we’re seeing what could be a death sentence for the southern resident killer whales. The Fraser Estuary is an ecological jewel being sacrificed for corporate profits.”
The decision comes as 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 such as Wilderness Committee, which was recently successful in pushing Guilbeault to recommend an emergency order to protect the critically endangered northern spotted owl.
“A few years ago, all of us watched with heavy hearts as the southern residents [killer whales] struggled to raise a new calf, Scarlet. The world watched as she slowly starved to death because of vessel traffic noise and insufficient salmon,” said Dawe. “Now the federal government is handing the rest of the pod a death sentence with the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project.”
