Texada Island LNG proposal familiar to Coast

A proposal to build the second-largest liquefied natural gas plant in British Columbia has Texada Island residents banding together to fight it, and Sunshine Coast residents recalling the fight to prevent a similar plan for Port Mellon in the late 1990s./

By Greg Amos/Staff Writer
Coast Reporter

A proposal to build the second-largest liquefied natural gas plant in British Columbia has Texada Island residents banding together to fight it, and Sunshine Coast residents recalling the fight to prevent a similar plan for Port Mellon in the late 1990s.

Calgary-based Westpac LNG hopes to build a $2 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) storing facility and gas-fired power plant at Kiddie Point, near Blubber Bay on Texada Island.

The proposed LNG plant was one information item on the agenda at a meeting between the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) and the Powell River Regional District (PRRD) on Monday (Oct. 22).

“Some people on Texada Island have serious concerns about it,” said the SCRD’s Pender Harbour director John Rees. “The Texada Island director [Dave Murphy] is supporting his community, and the PRRD seems to be supporting him.”

At a September meeting of Texada Action Now, a group opposing the LNG facility, former PRRD chair Chuck Childress said the project’s fate should be decided by a binding referendum by people on Texada Island — an action the PRRD is currently looking into. Childress estimated the facility would emit two million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) each year, 4.3 times more than the four biggest pulp mills on the Georgia Strait combined.

Two thermal plants would produce 300 megawatts each, though only one will run year round. The second plant will produce dispatchable power, and will run only when the transmission grid detects a power shortage.

LNG shouldn’t be a foreign acronym to long-time Coast residents. Westcoast Energy tried to build an LNG terminal at McNabb Creek near Port Mellon in the late 1990s. Strong public opposition led to strong political opposition, and the project’s rezoning bylaw was denied in the wake of 1999 SCRD election in which every director who had supported the LNG project was either defeated or retired.

“Whether or not it had benefits, it became an idea that the community wasn’t interested in,” said Gibsons mayor Barry Janyk.

SCRD Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis said the Port Mellon proposal “generated some lively discussion,” and expects the current proposal will do the same.

“Storing that kind of stuff in an earthquake zone — there’s little you can do to convince me that is safe,” he said.

The facility could have either one 200,000 cubic metre natural gas tank or two 165,000 cubic metre tanks, said Mark Butler, president of WestPac LNG. The project would generate more than 300 construction jobs and 80 full-time positions when completed.

LNG from Southeast Asia would be brought to the facility by specially-equipped tanker vessels — up to 36 ships per year, according to the proposal. Aside from its marine accessibility, Texada Island is a valued location for an LNG plant due to its proximity to transmission lines and to a Terasen pipeline connecting Vancouver Island to the Lower Mainland and U.S. markets.

Though the location of the facility is far from any point on the lower Sunshine Coast, the marine traffic generated will affect the community, said Dan Bouman, executive director of Sunshine Coast Conser-vation Association (SCCA).

“We’re going to get drawn in, as are all communities around the Georgia Strait,” he said.

Westpac LNG, who count former B.C. attorney-general Geoff Plant among their board of directors, argue the project could contribute to greater air quality in the Fraser Valley through decommissioning of the Burrard Thermal Generating Station in Port Moody, which operates at a 300 to 400 megawatt capacity, but at only 32 per cent efficiency. Butler said the plants proposed for Texada Island (which could expand to 1200 megawatts in the future) would operate at over 70 per cent efficiency.

To Childress, natural gas is still the wrong approach for B.C.’s power needs.

“Given the premier’s newfound ‘greenness’, it seems somewhat absurd to be importing fossil fuels to burn to produce power,” he said, noting the B.C. energy plan calls for the province be energy self-sufficient by 2016.

Butler stresses the project is still in the very early stages and won’t move forward until after Nov. 2008, when a final determination has been issued by the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), a climate partnership between eight western provinces and states, including B.C.

The market-based approach used by the WCI to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will underpin the feasibility, or lack thereof, of Westpac LNG’s proposal, Butler said.

Between regulatory hurdles and construction, it adds up to a project that couldn’t be up and running until 2013 at the earliest.