Petition to Stop the Expansion of Coal Exports
Do you want over a tonne of coal per day, every day, spreading into your local air and water?
The Port of Metro Vancouver wants to export four to eight million tonnes of coal to China every year—coal strip-mined and shipped from Montana—from the Fraser Surrey Docks (FSD) terminal on the Fraser River.
This "thermal" coal is softer than the BC-sourced metallurgical coal usually exported from Metro Vancouver, and more likely to be blown into the water and air.
Even if the FSD keeps “fugitive” coal from dust, spills and wastewater to one part in ten thousand—which is an optimistic figure—that means 400,000-800,000 kilograms of coal in your air and water every year.
To picture a kilogram of coal dust, imagine a dinner plate heaped four inches high with toxic black powder. The FSD proposal would create at least 400,000 to 800,000 of these every year. Stack these platefuls of toxic dust up and they’d be 25 to 50 miles high.
American coastal communities across Oregon and Washington have said no to being used as a transfer point for this dirty coal, on both health and environmental grounds. But Port Metro Vancouver appears determined to make Vancouver the largest exporter of US thermal coal in North America.
Fraser Riverkeeper is partnering with the Dogwood Initiative and other organizations on the petition on the right. Use your voice to say no to expanding coal exports at the Fraser Surrey Docks!
We the signatories draw your attention to proposals to expand British Columbia’s coal export capacity to serve foreign markets. We are especially opposed to exporting U.S. thermal coal, which American west coast communities have rejected.
Coal is a toxic product. Its mining, transport and combustion create grave risks to human health, to quality of life in communities surrounding mines, rail lines, port facilities and power plants, and to the global climate. That’s why an ever-growing number of residents, neighbourhood groups, non-profit organizations and municipal governments are standing up against coal expansion in B.C.
Your petitioners call upon Ministries, Parliament and the Legislature to use whatever means are available to:
STOP THE EXPANSION OF COAL EXPORTS FROM B.C.’S PORTS.
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