The union representing the Canadian Coast Guard’s marine communications officers is renewing its plea to the federal government to reconsider its decision to close Vancouver’s Marine Communications Centre.

Allan Hughes with CAW local 2182 claims that people’s lives and the environment are at risk if the facility — the marine version of an air traffic control centre — closes because of federal government budget cuts.

The Tories plan to move the communications hub, which monitors all vessel traffic in the port, to Victoria. Vessel traffic in the Vancouver Harbour will be monitored via cameras and radar.

“If the centre closes tomorrow, you will no longer be able to see the harbour,” Hughes said. “There are radar-blind areas … The last thing you want is a pilot on a ship having to do a crash stop while passing underneath the Second Narrows bridge because they didn’t know that vessel was there coming up.”

Hughes said that Vancouver, Comox and Tofino centres are expected to shut down by 2015.

Ben West with the Wilderness Committee, Jim Sinclair with the B.C. Federation of Labour, and Park Board Commissioner Constance Barnes also echoed their dismay with the plan to shut down the centre.