VANCOUVER – The Wilderness Committee is predicting that the people of Metro Vancouver will strengthen their resolve to oppose coal port expansion in the face of the sudden closing of an intergovernmental office designed to keep the Burrard Inlet and Fraser River Estuary safe from port-related impacts and spills.

The news of the closure coincides with Port Metro Vancouver’s consideration of an application by Fraser Surrey Docks to create a new coal export terminal, which proposes to send 1280 barges carrying a total of eight million tonnes of coal down the Fraser River each year. When local citizens and organizations wrote letters outlining their environmental concerns about the proposal, Port Metro Vancouver CEO Robin Silvester responded by referring to this office as an example of its work to keep the surrounding region safe from environmental impacts.

The Wilderness Committee has said that all proposed coal port expansions in the region should be halted, due to the serious climate change and health implications associated with increasing fossil fuel exports from BC.

“What worries me is that the Port’s CEO thinks it is fully appropriate to brag about the work of this office as a watchdog for the environment as recently as December, and then sit back and watch it shut down just a few months later,” said Eoin Madden, the Wilderness Committee’s Climate Change Campaigner.

“Added to the fact that the Port has shut the mayors of the Lower Mainland out of the review process, all of whom had environmental concerns, this sends a clear message that our concerns about coal shipment expansion aren’t a priority for Port Metro Vancouver,” Madden said.

Based in Burnaby, the office administered the Burrard Inlet Environmental Action Program (BIEAP) and the Fraser River Estuary Management Program (FREMP). It had been in operation for the last 28 years, before closing its doors on March 31. Its duties included protecting and improving environmental quality, providing economic development opportunities and sustaining the quality of life in and around the Fraser River Estuary

“The closure of the watchdog office seems very advantageous to the proponents of projects like the Fraser Surrey Docks coal facility, as there is now a critically important hurdle missing from the permitting process,” Madden said.

“In the aftermath of this closure we need to clear the air and send a strong message to the Port – no coal shipping expansions here,” said Madden.