Opportunity to send your comments to BC Government’s Environmental Assessment Office by June 8

It was with great sadness that many of us heard the news of our Federal Government’s approval on April 20, 2023 of the expansion for Roberts Bank Terminal 2, although the approval did include 370 legally binding conditions. 

Our Provincial Government is now considering this expansion project and has invited public comment until June 8^th. Comments are to be submitted through the BC Environmental Assessment Office. Submit your comments online, but do so soon as the deadline is June 8^th. Submit comments at this website:

https://www.projects.eao.gov.bc.ca/

Also on that website you can also read comments submitted by others. 

As an example, here is the submission from the Saturna Island Marine Research and Education Society: 

“The Saturna Island Marine Research & Education Society (SIMRES) urges the BC Government to disallow the port terminal expansion project at Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (RBT2). SIMRES has documented Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) and the marine ecosystem in the center of the Salish Sea since 2014. SRKW are listed as endangered under the Species at Risk Act (SARA) and with only 73 individuals remaining, are under grave threat. Not only will the noise, light, air, and marine pollution from construction and operations directly impact the SRKW, but the built project will destroy important habitat, thereby critically impacting Chinook salmon, other species in the Fraser River delta, and migrating birds, and will have a devastating effect on the biodiversity of this unique and valuable ecosystem. We are fully aligned with the large number of scientists, including the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, who have described the long-term adverse and cumulative negative effects on species at risk and biodiversity as a result of this project. SIMRES supports the evidence-based conclusions of Canadian, US and international scientists with study areas that include the Fraser River Estuary, salmon, and/or Southern Resident killer whales (letter to the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada dated 7th February 2022), namely, that if the conservation and recovery of Canada’s endangered and iconic wildlife species are a priority for the government of Canada (as previously stated), then the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project must be rejected.”