Introduction Voiceover: You are listening to season Four of Future Ecologies.
How do I describe a whale song? It's like an acoustic masterpiece to me. It's like if you had a all these puzzle pieces, and you had them spread out on a table, and every puzzle piece had its own little sound to it, and you started putting it together. That's what I think these whales do — at least least humpback whales when they're singing. It's like they try a little sound, they try a little sound, then they put those two sounds together, and
to them that's like "oh, yeah, that works" or it doesn't. So that's... I guess for me when I recognize these are emotional beings. Without a doubt, when you hear them vocalize, there is emotion in those sounds, especially to me the humpback whale song because they are actually creating something in the moment. And we're lucky enough to actually be able to listen to that creation while it's occurring.
But with Resident Orca who are extremely chatty, the idea that you have three clans and that each clan has their own language, and that within that clan, you have a number of pods that have their own dialect, and then some families that again, have their own dialect and some calls that only they will use. I mean to me right away that just... that just screams recognition. This is who we are by what we sound like.
Welcome back. My name is Mendel.
And I'm Adam.
And this is Janie Wray.
I am Janie Wray. And I have been listening to whales now for close to 30 years. Sound is everything when it comes to whales. We always compare sound to a whale, to how we use our vision to interpret our environment. So when we're walking through a trail or speaking with each other, most of us are able to use vision to understand our habitat and what's around us. That would be the same for whales. Whales are literally using sound, let's say
to see their environment. And I think part of that is not only because of course it's hard to see within a dark ocean. But because sound travels so much more efficiently in water it would only make sense that they would evolve to be a creature that is dependent on sound.
Janie is the founder and lead researcher of the North Coast Cetacean Society, or if you prefer, BC Whales.
BC Whales, alongside SIMRES and OrcaLab are the three nonprofit marine research organizations behind the BC Coastwide Hydrophone Network: a system of calibrated underwater microphones positioned up and down coastal British Columbia, in partnership with First Nations communities.
This hydrophone network is intended, among other things to help us understand the behaviors of cetacean species at risk: Southern and Northern Resident killer whales, transient Biggs killer whales, humpbacks, fin whales, and harbor porpoises.
The beauty of it is is that when you put a hydrophone in the water, no matter where it is, you are able to listen 24/7 without having an impact on what it is you're trying to study or protect. It doesn't matter whether it's stormy, it doesn't matter whether it's dark, you are able to collect habitat use of whales, because whales are an
acoustic creature. And it also then allows you to record every other sound under the water, including, of course, that of vessel noise, pile driving, any anthropogenic noise that humans are making. But it also allows you to record — and I don't know if everyone thinks about this — weather patterns, because there's also a lot of ambient noise that's caused by storms and waves. And rain! Rain can sound pretty loud underwater. So these whales, you know, they've evolved on a planet where
there's always been ambient noise. But then when you add the anthropogenic noise on top of that, I think that's a pretty huge thing for them to have to deal with. Not only of course, listening to whales but listening to each other. I think there's a huge lesson and something we can really learn from whales — because they have to listen to
each other. And I've always thought that if we could learn to listen to each other, like whales listen to each other, in many ways it would be a better planet because they're so dependent on communication. So listening to me is everything.
Today, we're bringing you a story about how we navigate listening. Even when sometimes our interests are misaligned, can we find ways to hear one another through all of the noise? And what happens when we expand the circle of listening to include the more than human world? We're going to be talking about ecology and extinction, dollars and sense, and perhaps the biggest construction project you've never heard of.
From Future Ecologies. This is Terminal. Introduction Voiceover: Broadcasting from the unceded, shared, and asserted territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and other Hul'qumi'num-speaking peoples, this is Future Ecologies: Exploring the shape of our world through ecology, design and sound. If you’ve listened to our show before, you may have heard me mention that I live on Galiano Island. It’s a small,
part of an archipelago known as the Southern Gulf Islands, which lie within the Salish Sea, halfway between the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Island All of this is off of the Pacific coast of British Columbia, Canada and just across the US border. So, to get between Vancouver and Galiano Island, you have to take a ferry across what's known as the Strait of Georgia. It's just a fact of living out here. If you need to do anything off island,
your day is at the mercy of the ferry schedule. And going to or coming from Vancouver means passing through the ferry terminal at Tsawwassen, a community that bears the name of the local First Nation. In English Tsawwassen translates to "the land facing the sea". The Tsawwassen First Nation's traditional territory includes the rich tidal flats formed by the delta of the Fraser River, which snakes its way across the entire province before emptying
into the Strait of Georgia. The freshwater plume from the river delta, rich with sediments from the interior forms a massive estuary, and it has an enormous influence on the Strait of Georgia and even Galiano Island. In fact, it's common knowledge among island beach goers that the typically icy ocean water is just a little bit warmer on the strait side, due to the outflow of the Fraser.
Wait.. it you knew that, then why did he take me swimming on the other side of the island?
I like the cold.
Okay, so to recap, we have the largest river on the west coast of Canada, passing directly through the largest metro area in Western Canada and forming an enormous estuary at the heart of the Salish Sea. There's a whole bunch of small islands, including Galiano Island, that sit just beyond the river delta, and are accessed by ferry from Tsawwassen. The ferry terminal sits on a piece of manmade land at the end of a long causeway, jutting out into the strait. But the ferry
is not the only terminal in Tsawwassen. Roberts Bank, this short strip of coastline and south of the Fraser, is also home to a second causeway, a conduit linking rail lines and transport trucks to another artificial island, where goods flow to and from other continents. This manufactured peninsula is the site of Deltaport. As part of the Port of Vancouver, the busiest port in Canada, Deltaport is overseen by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, a federal Crown
Corporation. It's the waypoint for millions of cargo
corrugated metal boxes, which arrive loaded with consumer goods, clothes, electronics and all of your COVID impulse purchases and then leave packed with grain pulses, lumber and pulp. And the fact that the port, the ferry terminal, and these communities are all located here — on this estuary, at the mouth of the Fraser River — that is no coincidence.
Globally if we look at the fact that the mega cities around the world are usually plunked down on estuaries, and it's because that's where small communities started. They started because of this unbelievably rich environment for food — not just for wildlife species, but for humans as well. It's also a great trade corridor because you can move up and down the river and you can move your goods up and down the river. So why not start your little village on the
edge of an estuary? The soil is fertile, it is productive. It's heaven. It's got everything. And so that's why 70% of the world's mega cities are built on estuaries and that estuaries are now some of the most endangered ecosystems on the planet.
This is Misty,
My name is Misty MacDuffee and I am a conservation biologist that focuses on salmon ecology. And I work for the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
Misty lives on Pender Island, another one of the Southern Gulf Islands.
We're neighbors... sort of.
Sure. And it's her work on salmon that brings her here to the Fraser River estuary.
It's the rearing grounds for Canada's largest populations of salmon from a single watershed. It feels like my backyard. If you want to like look at just what's the definition of an estuary. You could say, well, it's the point of high tide or it's the point of the saltwater wedge up into the river. But then as it fans out and mixes with the marine waters, that freshwater is still detectable right out to
the Gulf Islands. So we are actually in the estuary. Even though I often get on the ferry to go get there, it's all the estuary, so I'm working in my backyard.
The muddy fan of an estuary is a critical part of the salmon lifecycle, in their role as an anadromous fish — or fish that are born upriver, and then spend their adulthood in the ocean. All salmon must pass through the estuary at least
first as adolescents, and then again, on their final homeward journey to spawn. The estuary feeds them and shelters them. It's critical habitat for this keystone species, whose nutrient rich bodies ultimately provide food to a litany of other creatures from the land, the air, and the sea.
Grizzly bears, black bears, cormorants, mergansers, herons, killer whales, salmon sharks. It's a gauntlet — from the time they come out of that egg, 'til the time that they return to those same spawning grounds to lay their eggs — it's a gauntlet of predators... before we get to anything else we've piled on top of them.
And we have, admittedly, piled a lot on top of them. Urbanization and development along the river and in the delta, has profoundly degraded the quality and character of this habitat. Factors like the sedimentation, the salinity, the plant and insect populations, and the estuaries capacity to moderate the flow of water and mitigate flooding each have an impact on salmon survival. Taken together, these impacts have reduced some salmon populations to the brink of local extinction.
This is a problem not just for those salmon, but for an entire food web that relies on them, including the Salish Sea's most famous residents, who Janie introduced us to earlier.
And when we think about the implications from populations blinking out, a great one of the consequences is from the loss of early time Fraser Chinook for Southern Resident killer whales. And there's a population of whales that are critically endangered that are dependent on Chinook salmon and even dependent on Chinook salmon from the Fraser River. So you've got an endangered population that's reliant on other endangered populations.
Chinook salmon and Southern Resident killer whales are just two of the species that depend on the Fraser River estuary for their survival, although maybe they're the two most recognizable. But many other creatures live here year round, and others just pass through.
For example, the Western Sandpiper, a small shorebird that descends annually on Roberts Bank in the hundreds
making a stopover to rest and eat along their northward spring migration. And what they eat is biofilm — effectively shorebird superfood. Biofilm, which is a slurry of diatoms and bacteria, covers the tidal mudflats. Its nutritional density, and really just its presence, also depends on all the dynamics of the river delta: the salinity, topography, temperature and more. And besides the animals we've discussed, this interface between the land and the ocean
is important for so many reasons. The delta has provided food, shelter and economic opportunities going back millennia. And now, the Fraser River lowlands are home to more than half the human population of BC.
And counting! So why have we brought you here, to the Fraser River estuary? And why have we introduced you to just a few of the communities connected to it? Well, that's because this whole region is standing on the threshold of even more change.
We're talking about a mega project with a price tag in the billions of dollars, that while controversial, has escaped the kind of international public attention that the TransMountain pipeline and the Site C dam have attracted. This is the proposed site of Roberts Bank Terminal 2, or RBT2 for short. And the decision over its future may be only weeks away.
Let's just dive right in the meat and potatoes of it. RBT2 would be a further extension beyond what the current footprint is — like the current footprint is substantial already, but RBT2 is looking to further increase their landscape into deeper waters.
This is Steven.
Yeah, my name is Steven Stark, my ancestral name is Slə́qsit. I’m from Tsawwassen First Nation.
And what's your role within Tsawwassen First Nation. First Nation?
Well, I have many roles. I sit on a variety of different committees. I currently sit on executive council at Tsawwassen First Nation. First Nation. I also sit as the chairman of the Housing Committee. I'm also a member of the Natural Resources Committee. And then I'm also a business entrepreneur in the community, and a father and all those other roles too.
At its core, the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 proposal is to build a new island, doubling the area of the existing terminal and connecting to it at one corner. It would jut further out into the deeper waters, past the causeway and towards the river. At a cost of approximately three and a half billion dollars. It stands to create three additional births for the world's largest ships, and double the total container capacity.
RBT2 was officially proposed by the Port Authority in 2013. Since then, it's been slowly churning through a process of community consultations, environmental reviews, and detailed submissions to the federal government. Over two dozen First Nations across the Salish Sea have been involved in years of consultations around this project, including, of course, Tsawwassen First Nation.
It's been many years, and people coming in and out of the community to get feedbacks and surveys and, you know, stewardship ideas and impacts to our members. So, you know, it starts to become redundant. Do you feel like sometimes that your words aren't being translated? Consultation, you know, the studies, the surveys, the workshops, the presentations, there's been a significant amount of them and doesn't mean that anybody's any more informed today than they were the first time.
You know, there's a reason why Tsawwassen picked this foreshore? It's because it was rich with opportunities of all types. Tsawwassen First Nation has always been a hub of trade. We used to have 100 longhouses down here. We were the people facing the sea. People from all different nations would come here, and barter and trade.
The old saying is when the tide is down, the table is set, because at that point, there's so much resources available and you can walk out so far, and pretty much find anything that you're looking for. And I always said this is amazing, like I I fell in love with it. I fell in love with walking the foreshore beach and picking crab right out of the sand.
But ever since 1970, the people facing the sea have found themselves facing the port instead.
You know, there's a long standing relationship issue with how the port was built and what transpired from the governments, and same with the ferry terminal as well, which still to this day hasn't been even acknowledged by the province.
Besides interrupting the view and limiting access to the tastiest offerings of the intertidal. Both the ferry terminal and the port have brought all kinds of disturbance to awesome.
You'll get nighttime shutters of the house when the trains smashed together, right? You can hear the ground shake, you get particular matter from diesel exhaust burning. Whether it's from the ship, whether it's from the diesel trucks doing delivery out to the port as well. So you get accidents, you get police calls, you see lights flashing, you get longshoremen speeding through the area — not just speeding but reckless speeding.
And this is how things are today. RBT2 would sit right on top of Tsawwassen's traditional crabbing grounds. It would expand the no-float exclusion zone for boats and draw yet more traffic to the near shore.
And yet, it's complicated. Because for now, Tsawwassen's economic well being is still closely tied to Deltaport,
We develop the lands and lease them out that our port-related businesses: for shipping goods and services in and out. So, you know, we signed a treaty as well. That gave us self-governing avenues available to us to be able to develop those lands, create revenue opportunities, because at the end of the day, we need to be self-sufficient, because the lifeline that the federal and provincial government has thrown Indigenous people and Tsawwassen First Nation eventually will be
pulled away, and we need to be able to be self sufficient. And we need to be able to provide schooling, housing programs, youth centers, daycares, administrative day-to-day operations, things like that. It's got to be funded somehow. So, you know, Indigenous people are supposed to live off the land? You know, I've heard that so many... I'm not gonna say racist, but a different — there's a different word for it.
You know, naive — being naive, in that sense that Indigenous people should just live off of the land, but how... you can't, you have to evolve in today's environment.
So when we asked Steven whether he was for or against port expansion, he just wasn't willing to come down on either side.
You know, am I in support of the port? I'm not going to say yes or no. There's going to be a great impact on our crabbing, our fishermens, our water rights, and I'm very concerned about that. And we all have been for many years. Do you feel like sometimes you just powerless against a Goliath that is going to do it anyways, and you just... you know, do you take what you can and run with the bag?
When we come back, we're going to chart the options that lay ahead. Because, as it turns out, Roberts Bank is facing not just one port expansion proposal, but two. Right after this.
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City of Vancouver, Vancouver where we live, is really a port city and it's grown. The question is, has Vancouver grown and then the port grew, or has the port grew and then Vancouver grew as a result of it?
Welcome back. My name is Adam
Mendel
And this is future ecologies.
Today, we're in the Fraser River estuary where the largest container port in Canada stands to get even bigger. And the voice you just heard is Marko.
My name is Marco Dekovic. I'm the Vice President of Public Affairs with GCT Global Container Terminals. We're a container terminal operator, so we are in business in handling our customers' trade. Our customers are ocean carriers, and their customers are consumers and beneficial cargo owners. And so, as the demand for those cargoes grow, it is our job to ensure that our customers have the ability to move that cargo through our terminals.
As terminal operator, we're tenants of port authorities. So in Canada port authorities are federal crown agencies that have been entrusted to manage the land that's been given to them, to generate revenue by renting it out or leasing it out. And so I like to equate it to a mall, a shopping mall. So the port authority is the mall administration, and we are the tenant in the mall. We like to think of ourselves as the anchor tenant in the mall.
So GCT operates Deltaport, leasing the lands from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. But despite what you might have assumed, they don't support the Port Authority's proposal to develop Roberts Bank Terminal 2.
So the Port Authority has been inventing a project called Roberts Bank Terminal 2, where they actually want to build a new island landmass out of Roberts Bank adjacent to the existing landmass outer Roberts Bank. And our proposal is to incrementally expand our existing facility by adding an additional birth and filling the land behind it.
GCT, that's Global Container Terminals, calls their proposal Deltaport Berth Four, or DP4. Essentially, they want to grow the terminal back towards the shoreline, adding in just one birth beside the causeway on the opposite side from the Fraser River.
But GCT doesn't just differ on the details. We were surprised to learn that they actually completely reject the Port Authority's rationale for expanding the terminal in the first place.
And it's not a quiet disagreement. GCT is behind the Better Deltaport campaign. So if you live here, and you've seen articles about the project in the Vancouver Sun or other regional publications, you might have caught their sponsored content, criticizing the Port Authority and RBT2.
So, faced with all these moving parts, we called in some help from Stephanie Wood.
Yes, Hello. My name is Stephanie. My ancestral name is Kwetásel'wet. I'm from Squamish nation, and I am a journalist with The Narwhal.
Stephanie has been covering the controversy at Deltaport for the past few years. So we asked her to give us the big picture, starting with the biggest question: why expand the port in the first place?
For some time, the Port Authority has been saying that there's going to be a need for more container capacity at the port. They've been talking about this since the 90s. And they say they have all these forecasts that show it gets really urgent, they say, by the mid 2020s, which is like...
now, really. But then Global Container Terminals who is competing with a different proposal — so obviously, they have some business interest here — but as a container operator, like they are saying that that is not true.
There is no scenario that we can see in the near term, despite you know some more recent spikes and demand for consumer goods or container trade, that there will be a need for 4 million-plus TEUs of capacity in Port of Vancouver in the near term. So, in the next 10,15, 20 years.
That measurement, TEU stands for 20 foot-equivalent unit, the standard unit of a shipping container. Currently Deltaport has capacity for 2.4 million TEUs. And Roberts Bank Terminal 2 stands to double that. But then there's another important question: where do all those containers end up?
35% of everything that moves through Canadian terminals — be it in Prince Rupert or in Vancouver — is US-destined. We're capturing that discretionary US-destined cargo to move through our terminals. The Canadian demand for containers has been relatively flat over the last 10 years.
According to GCT, any port expansion would be driven by the economic business case. That is the opportunity to outcompete terminals across North America by getting containers onto railways to service the Asia Pacific Gateway traffic.
Of course, it's their whole business model to capitalize on those opportunities as they can, which is why they still want to eventually expand the port.
Our approach for growth has always been through densification, incremental expansion — doing more within our footprint... doing more with less, if you will.
And to do so, GCT believes that they have a much better solution than the Port Authority's Terminal 2, which has understandably put a strain on their relationship.
When we saw from our private sector perspective that we need to start planning for the next incremental expansion for our project, we started engaging with the Port Authority in 2015 about Deltaport Berth 4 said "we think this is this is the next best way to grow capacity in the port, and we want to do it together with you". The port did not want to engage. And we submitted an application to begin working on Deltaport Berth 4, and the Port Authority
completely dismissed the application. They would even review it. So it's not like they looked at it and said "Okay, well, we don't agree with this. So we're not going to process the application or advance your project", they actually just refused to look at it. We felt that that was a wrong approach from a regulator which again, is a government agency, who's decided to you know, get in the in the business, if you will, of
container handling. So it'd be like the mall administrator getting into the retail business.
Marko was saying that basically, the Port Authority is now their landlord, regulator, and competitor. And no matter how people feel about containers, I think most people can be like that's a unique and possibly problematic situation.
And as you can imagine, from you know, day to day operations, it became challenging, because it was seen in the light where we're now competitors.
GCT claims that Deltaport Berth 4 would achieve almost the same capacity increase at less than half the cost, and with significantly lower environmental impacts: to salmon, to biofilm, and to crabbing grounds.
The only one where DP4 would potentially have slightly more impact is eel grass, because of where we're building slightly shallower.
But even then, they assert that they've successfully remediated eelgrass habitat in the past, when they first incrementally expanded the port — from two berths to three, back between 2008 and 2010.
So we asked the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority to comment on this schism with GCT and the rationale behind their own expansion plans. They told us that without terminal expansion, they see Canada's container capacity running out by 2025., with ripple effects across the national economy. They wouldn't make any statement on GCTs plans specifically, but they did refer us to a 2020 independent review panel of RBT2, which found that the Port Authority had appropriately considered alternatives.
This same panel was not optimistic about the environmental impacts, concluding that RBT2 would have numerous adverse residual and cumulative effects.
The Port Authority remains adamant that they can offset the damage caused by construction and operation, recently increasing their commitment to restore habitat from 29 to 86 hectares
Although their proposed terminal itself would still permanently destroy twice that amount of habitat.
From our readings of what the Port Authority has published previously, they contend the Deltaport Berth 4, being closer to the intertidal flats, would have worse environmental impacts than the deeper water RBT2. And they've expressed concern that DP4 would give GCT, an anti competitive hold over local container terminal services.
So we have two very different proposals on the table for port expansion: one by a federal Crown Corporation, and the other by their corporate lease holder, who feel that they're being denied due process.
I think they have a fair argument in terms of procedural fairness, like how can you legitimately go through this project for RBT2 when there's a proposal on the table that has definitely less consequences? And so how can you fairly say that you're going to evaluate Global Containers' proposal if you've already made this decision on Roberts Bank? So even just from a procedural perspective, the whole Roberts Bank review process should just stop until they can legitimately
review Global Containers'. But if we're going to do this, there needs to be a regional plan.
People aren't looking at this project in isolation, they're looking at everything that has happened to the estuary in the past few decades, how much development and other proposals there are already. And I think that people are starting to really realize just what's at stake. People are just already experiencing the impacts. They're already seeing the losses. Like how much more can this area really take?
I think that this is a question that we're all kind of grappling with, at a planetary scale, and at a local scale as well. And on this podcast, we've already covered one tool that has been applied to answer these kinds of questions. Priority Threat Management.
Priority Threat Management is becoming an increasingly popular approach to responding to the conservation crisis that we have globally around the world. And in the case of the Fraser, as in other areas around the world, it's not just you know, a couple of species that were concerned about. In the case of the Fraser it's more than 100 species that are recognized to be at risk — some level of at risk of extinction — that live parts of their lives or all of their
lives within the bounds of the Fraser estuary. And not only are the status of the species not recovering, and in many cases getting worse, there's more and more species being added to these lists all the time.
We first discussed Priority Threat Management with Dr. Tara Martin, in relation to the Southern Mountain Caribou in Episode 2.1. But we'll give you a quick recap.
It's a decision-making tool: a way to break out of the tunnel vision of trying to manage conservation for one endangered species at a time, and instead find the most effective solution for all of them.
The way that Priority Threat Management works is by bringing all the biologists and ecologists that work on the individual species or a group of species
Experts who deal with anadromous fish, marine mammals, aquatic plants, shorebirds, insects, etc, etc.
Getting them all into a room and saying "if we do X, what are the chances that the species will recover?"
Starting with —
"If we just continue the way we are? What is the likelihood that this species is going to be here in 25 years?" And the outcome of that was that two-thirds of those 100 species had a less than 50% probability of persistence in 25 years. So pretty dire, for most of the species that are in the estuary.
Then they look at the suite of possible interventions,
Restoring aquatic habitat, implementing green infrastructure, more fisheries regulation, changing the way we manage public lands, changing the way we manage private lands, dealing with invasive species, dealing with how we move vessels through their habitat, what about pollution?
And they crunch the numbers on how those would help the odds of survival for each of those species at risk. But it doesn't stop there.
What if we combined strategies? A combination of aquatic restoration and fisheries regulation, and changing the way we manage agriculture? What if we were to implement all of the strategies?
And finally, they tally up the price tag for every single one of those options.
So you come up with this matrix that says "here's the probabilities of survival for the species, and here's how much it's gonna cost" — what's the best thing we can do to recover the most number of species at the most cost effective price.
And... with all of those strategies combined, the odds of persistence for most of those species in 25 years gets bumped up to... just over 50%.
So in business as usual, it's below that 50% probability, which isn't a lot. Like it takes them from a worst chance to a better chance.
There's no escaping the fact that it's pretty late in the game to turn things around, especially for this region, which has already seen so much fragmentation and development. But the take-home message is that there is still a chance. And we have a good idea of how much it would cost.
It would cost about $380 million, or about $15 million a year, which on some levels is a drop in the bucket. You know, it might sound like a big figure. But I mean, how much are we spending on trying to expand the port?
Just to remind you, the current estimate for RBT2 is three and a half billion dollars.
How much are we spending on pushing through TransMountain right now? All of these things that affect the survival probability of the species.
As of a few weeks ago, the cost to build the TransMountain pipeline now stands at $21.4 billion, which is way up from an estimate of 7.6 billion just four years ago, when the federal government bought the pipeline. And just for reference, 21.4 billion would cover the estuary remediation we've been talking about for over 1300 years.
But then we also looked at what other components there could be to implementing the strategies that might improve it. And one of those components was if we were to change the way we make decisions collectively, and that if we were to implement a co-governance model that includes First Nations — actively as, you know, decision makers in these decisions, which hasn't happened in the past — and that we were able to have the funding to implement these
solutions. That just that implementation of better decision making and co-governance increases that survival above the 60% probability.
The total cost for the strategies recommended by this Priority Threat Managment process to give these species a fighting chance, and to institute a regional co-governance model would come out to less than $8 per year for every adult in just the Metro Vancouver area.
But there's another strategy that the PTM process highlighted. Although they were unable to assign a cost to it. One of the most effective ways to preserve the endangered species of the Fraser River estuary is perhaps the most obvious.
Don't proceed with the proposed mega projects that are on the books. Stop destroying this habitat with those kinds of projects, and undertake restoration. It's sort of intuitive that you would think "Oh, you know, what do we do?" Well, one, hold the line don't make anything worse. And second, start restoring the habitat that has already been trashed.
Halting major industrial development in this economic nexus might seem like a pipe dream. But the authors of the study are resolute on this point. They write "if major industrial developments continue in this region, the persistence of many iconic species, such as the Southern Resident killer whale, anatomist fishes, including salmon and sturgeon, and saltwater species, including the migratory Western Sandpiper are likely to be jeopardized."
And arguably, the reason that industrial development has been able to carry on as it has been, is because each project has only had to assess its environmental impacts in isolation, rather than considering its interactions and cumulative effects. There is no oversight that considers the region as a whole. But it wasn't always that way. Up until 2013, just a few months before RBT2 was officially proposed, there was a government agency with exactly
FREMP, or the Fraser River Estuary Management Plan.
Fingers crossed, this is the last acronym in this episode.
FREMP was the coordination of Fraser estuary activities between the federal government, the provincial government, the port, and, you know, sort of the greater metro region. And they didn't have any authority over decision making. They didn't have any funding. And they didn't have any First Nations participation. But what they were doing was they were conducting studies, they were compiling literature and undertaking assessments, and they were all talking to each
other. So it, it wasn't great. But it was completely eliminated under Stephen Harper. So FREMP disappeared, and a lot of the really big expansion proposals have happened since then.
the co-governance model that Misty and her Priority Threat Management colleagues recommend is the aspiration to improve upon FREMP 1.0.
So we need for all of those past stakeholders to come together again — with First Nations and the public — and have a set of criteria and principles that are going to guide decision making in the estuary, and that that be rooted in, you know, looking at cumulative effects and looking at our societal goals. But to correct the three main things that FREMP didn't have: the First Nations presence, the funding, and the decision making authority.
So we have a Port Authority, a Port Operator, a First Nation, a gaggle of ecologists, and a pod of orcas, each agreeing on some points and completely diverging on others. What do we want? What do we need? And what can we tolerate — for ourselves and all the communities touched by the Fraser River estuary? Is an effective compromise even possible here? Or is the estuary already compromised to the
limit? Can there really be a middle ground when one party — actually a whole host of parties in this relationship — are facing extinction.
And to that point, here again, is Janie Wray
At some point, there has to be that moment in time where we turn around and actually care enough, that instead of constantly taking, that we just start to give back — by giving back meaning giving something up. In all levels, when it comes to the resources that we take from the planet, we're going to have to start to give back at some point here, and we're all going to have to give up a little something in
order to do that. That's what always goes through my mind when I hear about another expansion, about another port, about, you know, increasing vessel traffic. I just don't know how these whales are going to survive it.
On the other hand, even the most ardent environmentalists among us are keenly aware of the social and economic tolerances that we live within.
I mean, I'd love to say, but wouldn't it be great, right? No more shipping, we're gonna stop at all. But we know that can't happen. The reality is we're all participating in this, we're all using the products that are coming off of these vessels most likely. So there has to be a way to make that work.
So, as Mendel and I were staring a hole right through this issue, we realized that there might actually be an outside-of-the-box sort of solution staring right back at us. And we weren't the only ones to see it. The terminal at Roberts Bank isn't just home to GCT-Deltaport. The same artificial island and causeway also houses Westshore: a bulk export terminal whose business is based around just one thing. Coal.
Most of that is metallurgical coal used in the manufacturing of steel. But almost a third of the coal shipped by Westshore is thermal coal, destined to be burned for heat and electricity. And in the end, both thermal coal and metallurgical coal have effectively the same carbon footprint.
Ports on the west coast in the States refused to export this thermal coal, and the way that it gets out is by coming up into Canada by train, and then out of the port. And so a lot of people have kind of pointed out the hypocrisy in the fact that the Canadian government is allowing the export of thermal coal to power electricity elsewhere in the world, which is extremely greenhouse gas intensive, while at the same time leading an initiative to ban the use of thermal coal for electricity.
In June of last year, the federal government released a new policy statement, calling for the elimination of thermal coal mining and burning in Canada, but made no mention of closing this loophole: our continued facilitation of the mining, export, and combustion of American coal. So we wrote to GCT and asked whether they could get the extra container capacity they want, by taking over the coal port instead of by building
out a new berth. Their answer was that Westshore is a strong, viable business, who hold the lease to their terminal until 2066. And who have announced their plans to diversify from coal and begin to export potash, which is widely used as fertilizer. Plus, converting the bulk terminal would require extensive renovations so that it could handle the weight of stacked containers. In short, from GCT's perspective, not feasible.
Although we should point out that Westshore is effectively GCT's, roommate at Roberts Bank, and so it's possible that this response is at least partially diplomatic. For their part in this question, the Port Authority wrote to us that they are mandated under the Canada Marine Act to enable Canada's trade through the Port of Vancouver, ensuring that goods are moved safely, efficiently and sustainably.
They don't however, decide what moves through the port. The federal government is responsible for making decisions related to what goods and commodities Canada trades, including coal.
I'm sure there's an economic argument for why the port profits by shipping US coal. But I think that socially in this day and age that's getting harder and harder to sell. You know what, if we really, really really need a little bit more capacity at Roberts Bank, get rid of the coal terminal. That is the logical place for it to go. Because we really can't increase shipping traffic through the
Salish Sea anymore. The Salish Sea can't get any noisier if we hope to recover Southern Resident killer whales.
Replacing the coal terminal in order to get this extra container capacity isn't a slam dunk. And it might or might not even be feasible. But it does pose a case study for what, as a society, we are or aren't willing to consider as a compromise in order to meet our stated climate change and biodiversity goals. But, frankly, something's got to give.
Knowing what we know and where we are how do we move forward? And I think that we kind of have to get away from this economy versus the environment approach because ultimately, we have to recognize that our economy is underpinned by the health of our ecosystems and our environment. So if you're going to compete between those two, it's it's not too long before everything runs out, and we have neither.
As a case in point, nothing illustrates this better than the experience of Tsawwassen fishermen over the past several decades.
You would see so many Tsawwassen boats out on the water. You would see a camaraderie within the community that uplifts people and people helping to get nets and fuel their boats up with each other, and people running around with trucks and ice, and we would have fishermen's parties, ball for the community, things like that. Those days are long and gone. Crabbing is getting more and
more difficult. But salmon as well is... I would have to say it's like life support at this point on salmon stocks, and the camaraderie is definitely changed. Unintended consequence of depleting of resources means people's morale is going down.
So where do we stand, right now? We asked Stephanie to sketch out who, besides the folks we've talked to, has come out as for or against Roberts Bank Terminal 2.
I saw one mining company – it's like a Surrey-based mining company was like, "Yeah, we're for it". And that's all I found. Even the municipalities in the surrounding area are all against.
That includes the city of Delta, where the port is located, plus the city of Richmond, both have passed motions in opposition to RBT2, either to reject it outright, or at least to wait until it can be compared with DP44.
And as far as the official process, for the last year and a half, the federal environmental review for RBT2 had been on pause. The previous Minister for the Environment had postponed making a decision, instead sending the Port Authority to gather more information. And then, in December of 2021, the Port Authority filed their response.
So now they're in the middle of a public comment period.
Which will last until March 15. And again, is open to the public.
Yes, everyone can comment, it's pretty easy.
I urge urge urge more people to submit their comments.
And so like us, you might wonder what will happen after March 15.
So if the minister decides that he got enough information to make an informed decision, then the timeline restarts, and he has to make a decision within 89 days. So theoretically, by mid-2022, we will know what the decision is. If the minister decides that the project will have adverse environmental impacts, then it's then passed on to the governor and council, and the process isn't over yet.
At that point, the federal cabinet can decide to overrule the Minister of the Environment if it decides that, despite all of the concerns, raised port expansion is still in the public interest. So to reiterate, the public can speak out for or against the expansion, the Minister of the Environment will make his determination. And still, all of that could potentially be overturned by the federal cabinet one way or the other.
Based on what we've just discussed, I do not see how that project is in public interest. Money will create further burden on the public purse, it will create more negative environmental impacts, and this is not really in line with what the customers are looking for. But ultimately, it will be a government decision.
So thank you all for listening. This has been Future Ecologies where we keep you informed about important issues that you have absolutely no control over.
Wait wait wait... cut that out. I know that none of this seems particularly democratic. But every observer we've spoken to so far, thinks that this decision could easily go one way or the other. And nothing is certain at this point. So those public comments might actually make a huge difference.
In reality, your voice does matter whether you feel it's insignificant or not. We need to accumulate all of that information and just try to make the best decision you can collectively and hope 20 years from now. You didn't fail miserably at it.
Inevitably, there's going to be conflict in this world about this port, about development, about anything. Get enough people together, or for that matter, enough animals, or enough plants and you can guarantee that they're not all going to get along.
We started off this episode by thinking about the importance of listening — really listening. Listening to the sound of an increasingly noisy ocean, and listening to each other — as our values increasingly press up against our needs and our desires. If you listen to the Port Authority, our economy urgently needs more container capacity, and we can get it safely and responsibly.
If you listen to GCT, we will eventually need that capacity. But we can get it in a much less expensive and risky way.
If you listen to conservationists, any additional development within the estuary chips away at an already precarious food web, and plants another nail in the coffin of over 100 species at risk.
And if you listen to Tsawwassen and other First Nations of the Salish Sea, these cumulative effects have been rapidly stacking up since the waterways of the delta were first diked in the 1860s, providing some opportunities, but also posing significant cultural, economic, and ecological harms that are ongoing.
So for those of you who live here, in the Salish Sea, it might sound trite, but now is your opportunity to speak and to make your voice heard on this issue. For those of you who are tuning in from elsewhere, we're absolutely certain that there's a controversial development proposal just like this one on the horizon in your own backyard. We don't pretend to have the answers, so instead, we're going to give the last word to just a few of the other voices of the estuary.
We can't say for certain what they're saying, but the least we can do is to listen.
Future Ecologies is an independent production made possible by our supporters on Patreon. For photos, citations, transcripts and a link to make a comment on RBT2, visit us at futureecologies.net
this episode was produced by me, Mendel Skulski. And me, Adam Huggins With help from Megan Hockin Bennett and Lili Li
Geaturing the voices of Janie Wray, Misty MacDuffee, Steven Stark, Marco Dekovic and Stephanie Wood
And with music by Ruby Singh, Dawn Pemberton, Inuksuk Mackay, Russel Wallace, Shamik Bilgi, Tiffany Ayalik, Tiffany Moses, Thumbug and Sunfish Moon Light.
Special thanks to Megan Hockin Bennett, Alex Harris, Jennifer Perih, Julia Feyrer, Tara Martin, Matti Polychronis, Rebecca Abel, Erin Harlos and Gary Sutton.
And thanks to OrcaLab for the amazing underwater audio. For more on their work and the BC Coastwide Hydrophone Network, check out the links in the show notes
Which you can find on our website
futureecologies.net
Where you'll also find all of the Port Authority's answers to our questions. And while you're there, you can get in touch with us. Or if you prefer, we're also on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The handle is always Future Ecologies.
Okay. That's all for now.
You'll be hearing from us soon.