The Vancouver Airport Fuel Facilities Corporation (VAFFC) is holding a public information session this Saturday on the controversial proposal to build a jet fuel tank farm on the banks of Fraser River.
Owned by a consortium of airlines that use YVR, VAFFC wants to barge jet fuel up the river to a storage facility on an industrial site on the Richmond side of the south arm of the Fraser. An underground pipeline would send the fuel to the airport.
In December 2013, the province gave the project a conditional environmental assessment certificate after a review led by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office.
The application also received an Environmental Decision Statement from Port Metro Vancouver, allowing the project to proceed to the permitting phase.
VAFFC says it received those approvals "following more than a decade of comprehensive planning, research, review and consultation, including seven open houses and more than 80 meetings with stakeholders." Additional permits are still required from federal and provincial agencies as well as from Port Metro Vancouver.
Construction of the new system is expected to be completed by spring 2018.
Earlier this year, the citizens' group Vancouver Airport Project Opposition for Richmond (VAPOR) lost a legal challenge of the B.C. government's granting of the environmental certificate.
Made up of mostly Richmond residents, but also having a few from Delta, the group had been challenging the permit on grounds that the public was not properly consulted during the environmental assessment process.
The group now says it's formally objecting to the short notice given for this weekend's open house, noting many concerned residents are not available due to the holiday season and that the short notice time severely limits the time in which the word can spread and for the public to read and understand the impact of new documents made public.
"Whether or not the legal requirements have been met, it does not meet a moral one, the public deserves a better consultation than this," the group states. The open house on Aug. 29 will be held in Richmond at the Holiday Inn Express Suites, Riverport, 10688 No. 6 Rd., from 2 to 5 p.m.
