Maybe it was stakeholder fatigue. Or perhaps Squamish people have exhausted their questions and sent in their comments to the Environmental Assessment office (EAO) already.
Whatever the reason, it was a quiet six hours at the EAO hosted open house regarding the Fortis小蓝视频 proposed Eagle Mountain to Woodfibre Gas Pipeline Project held at the Sea to Sky Hotel Feb. 11.
The event was on from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., and by 6 p.m. only about 60 people had come through to talk to the EAO representatives, look at the notice boards and peruse maps.
EAO officials said at the Squamish open house for the Woodfibre LNG project on Jan. 28, there had been a good turnout of about 175 people, plus 268 people combined at the other EAO hosted Woodfibre open houses held in West Vancouver and on Bowen Island.
鈥淲e love to see people come out and participate in the process and to ask questions and so hopefully come away with some answers,鈥� said Michael Shepard, project assessment manager with the EAO.
He said Fortis小蓝视频鈥檚 safety record and proximity of the proposed pipeline to individual homes were common concerns he has heard at the open houses.
At the event Feb. 11, members of anti-LNG group My Sea to Sky set up in the hallway outside the entrance to the open house and handed out a question and answer sheet as well as an anti-LNG report created by the Wilderness Committee.聽
鈥淭he application is 10,000 pages long 鈥� it is not fair. That is what it comes down to, it is not fair and that makes me sad because they are pretending we have meaningful input, but how are we supposed to?鈥� asked Kati Palethorpe of My Sea to Sky.
鈥淚 really care and I want to make sure I do my best, but that would mean reading 300 pages a day for the Woodfibre thing alone,鈥� she said.聽
Palethorpe鈥檚 young daughter is a cancer survivor and Palethorpe said Squamish currently has clean water and air, which is good for her daughter, she said. As a mom, she doesn鈥檛 want that to change because of the liquefied natural gas plant proposed for Squamish that the Fortis小蓝视频 pipeline would feed.
Squamish resident Ian Hanlon, who said he has done work as an exploration geophysicist, said projects such as Fortis小蓝视频鈥檚 pipeline and Woodfibre LNG can create opportunities for science.
鈥淲ith all these negative angles, there are always these positive spins you can go and look at,鈥� he said, while looking at some of the poster boards inside the open house.
鈥淵ou drill a hole in the ground, you get some gas out and that gas comes to a pipeline, then to a bigger pipeline, from that pipeline to a compressor, down to a liquefaction plant, down to a ship to the end market where it is re-gasified and used to provide energy to homes,鈥� Hanlon said. 鈥淭he truth is, it is a linear system and engineering points all the way along there are quite well known, and in fact very well known, but scientifically they are not; there are bits missing. There are gaps in our scientific knowledge and we want to understand them,鈥� he said.聽
鈥淚f all the big players are coming over here to play in our sandbox and be with us, let鈥檚 reach for that and get research, and get research here in Squamish.鈥�
Hanlon also said that if exporting liquefied natural gas reduces global use of coal, that鈥檚 positive because the dangers of burning coal are well understood.聽
The second EAO open house for the pipeline in Coquitlam on Feb. 12 attracted only 36 people, according to Fortis小蓝视频.
Comments on both the pipeline and the Woodfibre LNG project can be submitted through the Environmental Assessment Office website at www.eao.gov.bc.ca, faxed to 250-387-0230 or mailed to Michael Shepard, Environmental Assessment Office, PO Box 9426 Stn Prov Govt, Victoria 小蓝视频 V8W 9V1.
