Local New Democrat MPs Jasbir Sandhu and Jinny Sims presented petitions containing roughly 400 signatures Thursday to the House of Commons, calling for a “comprehensive third-party” review of the impact Fraser Surrey Docks proposed coal project will have on people’s health.
“The health and well-being of our communities should be a priority in all political decisions,” said Sandhu, MP for Surrey North.
Sims, the MP for Newton-North Delta, said “concerned citizens” have expressed worries about air quality, coal dust and other potential environmental impacts.
“I join them in this request for a third-party assessment of the health impacts of this project and look forward to the response of the government to this request,” she said.
Fraser Surrey Docks wants to set up a coal transfer operation near the Surrey-North Delta border that can handle up to four million metric tonnes of coal per year to start and up to eight million tonnes in the long term.
The coal would be mined in Montana and Wyoming and be brought through White Rock, Surrey and North Delta to the docks, on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail line, by four train engines pushing and pulling as many as 135 container cars.
The train's overall length, at its longest, would be just over 2.3 kilometres long. The plan is to have one train delivery every other day for the first year increasing to two trains per day in the second year.
No coal would be stored at the docks during normal operations, but rather would be loaded straight onto barges which tugboats will tow down the Fraser River and on to Texada Island, where the coal would then be stored before being loaded onto deep sea vessels bound overseas.
The Fraser Surrey Docks is the largest multipurpose terminal on the West Coast of North America, handling roughly 400 deep-sea vessels each year. In 2012, it celebrated its 50th anniversary.
