British Columbia

Tanker increases raise oil s

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“Vancouver is being turned into a major
deep sea oil port, but it’s happening in
increments so that people don’t notice,”
Call for Inquiry spokesperson Bob Bossin
warns.

“We're seeing the ‘Valdezization’ of
Vancouver Harbour,” a federal Crown
corporation, he says.

The Call for Inquiry was launched last
spring following two key oil spill disasters:
the fouling almost one year ago of west
Vancouver Island beaches from the rupture
of a U.S. barge carrying Bunker C oil, and
the devastating pollution of Prince William
Sound last March from Alaskan oil leaking
from the Exxon supertanker.

The group, consisting of 200 prominent
British Columbians including artist Toni
Onley, Dr. Andrew Thompson of the
former West Coast Oil Ports Inquiry, Chief
Saul Terry, Peter C. Newman and David
Suzuki, pressed the federal cabinet to
launch a full-scale inquiry into the petro-
leum shipping industry in a meeting with
five ministers, including Environment Min-
ister Lucien Bouchard.

Instead, the federal government launched
the Brander-Smith Review Panel on Tanker
Safety and Marine Spills — an inadequate
response, group member Dr. Andrew
Thompson charges.

“What’s really required is a kind of
inquiry that can do a searching look into
that kind of traffic,” he insists. '

(The panel, headed by Vancouver mari-
time law lawyer David Brander-Smith,
concluded its cross-country hearings in
Vancouver Wednesday and Thursday.)

“The panel doesn’t meet the criteria for
full disclosure,” says Bossin, pointing out
there is no funding for public groups, cross-
examination of corporate representatives is
limited, witnesses cannot be subpoenaed,
and answers are not taken under oath.

Along the Burrard Inlet citizens groups
are warning about the threefold expansion
of tanker traffic resulting from Trans
Mountain Pipeline’s successful application
before the National Energy Board last year
to increase its storage tank and pipeline
facilities.

ANDREW THOMPSON

The Burnaby Citizens for Environmental
Protection says the expansion means 35
additional tankers per year carrying crude
oil to Pacific Rim countries through the
Vancouver port.

Meanwhile, the Port Moody Citizens for
a Clean Environment are organizing
against a joint application by Petro Canada
and Neste Oy, a Norwegian firm, to ship an
untested chemical additive for non-leaded
gasoline from the Crown corporation’s Port
Moody facilities. It entails an additional 26
tankers carrying MTBE — Methyl Ter-
tiary Butyl Ether — moving the chemical
from the port to customers in the United
States.

The chemical will be shipped through
Trans Mountain Pipeline’s facilities from a
new MTBE plant in Edmonton to be com-
pleted by 1991, notes a report from Bur-
naby chief public health inspector George
Harvie.

The Burnaby group points out that
Environment Canada is still studying the

DAVID FAIREY

effects on human health of MTBE, and no
regulations governing its handling are yet in
place.

“Such growth of the petro-chemical
industry is incompatible with a growing
major urban centre,” says David Fairey of
the Burnaby citizens group.

In his report Harvie states there should
be a “sustainable limit” to development of
the petro-chemical industry in the harbour,
citing concerns about the ability of local
agencies to handle a major spill, the effects
of discharges on the air and water, and the
adequacy of the Coast Guard vessel traffic
services to monitor the increased tanker
traffic in the inner harbour.

Thompson said the increased tanker traf-
fic over the past five years makes a special
inquiry into the issue “more urgent now
that there are new expansion plans.”

He noted that since 1984 shipments of
crude oil have increased to 1,360,000 tonnes
from 61,400 tonnes.

The Call for Inquiry group says they’ve

pill fears

LUCIEN BOUCHARD

received warnings from “master mariners”

that major spills have occurred in almost _

every port that handles supertankers regu-
larly.

Bossin says the group also has a report
from a master mariner, who remains
unnamed, outlining dangers of trying to
shepherd supertankers through the trea-
cherous Second Narrows of Burrard Inlet.
The document reports that the port lacks
tugs of sufficient horsepower to handle the
gigantic ships.

Harvie’s recommendations, subsequently
adopted by council, mirror those of the
Burnaby Citizens for Environmental Pro-
tection. These include full studies of oil and
MTBE shipments by the federal Environ-
mental Assessment Review Process.

The citizens’ environmental groups have
also demanded a moratorium on increased
oil tanker traffic and on the MTBE prop-
osal until complete federal and provincial
reviews have been completed, and regula-

‘ons for handling are in place.

The Non-Partisan Association majority
on Vancouver city council has endorsed
Concord Pacific’s plan for the redevelop-
ment of the Expo 86 lands. Only the three
Committee of Progressive Electors alder-
men — Libby Davies, Bruce Eriksen and
I — voted against.

Why were the Hong Kong billionaires
who own Concord Pacific so anxious to
have city council push through this plan?
The answer is that the return on their small
investment could be over 1,000 per cent.

The provincial government sold this
huge property in the heart of Vancouver,
about the size of 50 city blocks, for $145
million. And only $50 million of this had
to be paid up front. It’s worth at least $1
billion and perhaps $2 billion. Concord
will be flipping this property to other
developers, who will flip it to still others.
Who knows where it will end up or what
this property will be worth five or 10 years
from now? .

Most of the housing that will be built on
this property will not be affordable hous-
ing. It will be expensive and reserved for
those with high incomes. It’s all part of the
NPA’s plan to make downtown Van-
couver an executive city.

The city is planning to buy back a piece
of the property for so-called “social hous-
ing.” This will cost the city $50 million,
three times what Concord Pacific paid for
it. This means that Concord is getting

back its $50 million down payment. What-
ever it sells off to developers now will be all
gravy.

The “‘social housing” is dependent on
the money being put up by senior
governments (the city would provide the
land). So far there is no indication that
either Ottawa or Victoria is willing to pro-
vide funds for affordable housing. Con-
cord accepts no responsibility for provi-
ding social housing:

When this huge property is rezoned, its
assessed value will immediately go up to at
least $700 million. In actual fact its market
value will be much greater.

The taxes the city will get from this
development will be eaten up by the cost of
the extra services the city will have to

* provide — police and fire protection, two

new schools, a library, on so on.
Remember, this project will add 13,300

No benefit to city from Concord project

people to the city’s downtown core. There
will be two big hotels, stores, restaurants,
and 34 storey office towers.

The job of the city planning department
is to make an objective assessment of such
projects to make sure that the best inter-
ests of the city are protected. That’s what
we pay them for. But in this case a differ-
ent arrangement was worked out.

Concord ‘paid the city to hire more
planners. The city staff and the developer’s

Rankin

staff met regularly and privately several
times a week and often in the developer’s
offices.

This was called the “team approach.”
It’s something like a hamburger made up
of elephant and rabbit meat — one ele-
phant to one rabbit. The developers got
what they wanted. Our city planning
department became an adjunct of the
developers.

No wonder the head of Concord Pacific
called it “advantageous,” and said he had
“people from Japan, Australia, United
States and Europe coming to see how it
works”. I believe him; developers the
world over are interested in how to bypass
city councils to get what they want.

Pat Wilson, a member of the park
board, presented a brief to city council
summarizing the views of COPE about
the Concord plan. She made the following
points, among others:

© The densities are too high.

@ The social housing is inadequate.

@ The amount of family housing to be
provided is insufficient.

@ The nature and amount of park land
is based solely on what the developer pro-
posed. No consideration was given to pro-
viding recreational access to this park for
all Lower Mainland citizens.

@ The plan provides no guarantees at
all that the proposed 1,500 units of “social
housing” will ever be built.

To sum up: this valuable parcel of land
should never have been privatized. It
should have been used to provide afforda-
ble housing and recreational facilities that
tens of thousands of citizens could enjoy.

It’s just one more example proving that
the provincial government is using public
assets to fill corporate coffers. Unfortu-
nately our NPA city council is tagging
right along.

2 « Pacific Tribune, December 4, 1989