An environmental assessment of a controversial coal terminal is still not complete, nearly two weeks after it was supposed to wrap up.
The review of the environmental and health data for the Fraser Surrey Docks $15 million terminal expansion is being conducted by SNC Lavalin. Port Metro Vancouver, the authority which has to approve the project, ordered the review in mid-September.
At the time, Fraser Surrey Docks stated they expected the review to be complete by the end of September.
But as of Thursday, SNC Lavalin was still working on the file.
“The review from SNC has not been completed,” Fraser Surrey Docks stated in an email response to The Record’s inquiries.
“It will be posted online once complete.”
Fraser Surrey Docks did not return phone calls, responding to questions about the review only by email.
The proposal would see a coal transfer station built on the Surrey-Delta border that would handle between four million and eight million metric tonnes of coal per year.
The coal will be mined in the Powder River Basin, straddling the Montana-Wyoming border and shipped by rail cars to barges at the proposed facility. It would ultimately be sent to markets in China.
Critics of the project have raised concerns about the potential health hazards of coal dust on communities along the line and across from the terminal, among other issues.
On Wednesday, the B.C. Nurses’ Union weighed in on the debate, backing the anti-coal coalition Communities and Coal’s position that the coal expansion poses a risk to public health.
“Nurses are acutely aware of the alarming health risks associated with coal dust, and we support the call for the public’s health and well-being being front-and-center in the fight against increased coal transport and expansion around B.C.,” union president Debra McPherson and vice-president Christine Sorensen wrote in a letter of support to the coalition.
“The BCNU shares your concerns about the proposal, announced recently by Port Metro Vancouver, to develop a coal transfer facility along the Fraser River in Surrey. We concur with the assessment that a coal export expansion project of this size would impact the health and well-being of thousands of citizens in B.C. communities and cause considerable damage to an already fragile, coastal environment.”
In the letter, McPherson and Sorensen also call for public and local government involvement in all coal export decisions.
