EDITOR:
Re: Port volumes up slightly mid-year report shows, Aug. 12
Recent comments by Robin Silvester, president and CEO of Port Metro Vancouver, raise alarm bells.
He claims recent statistics "highlight the importance of infrastructure upgrades." In fact, recent statistics reveal that planned Gateway container infrastructure projects at Deltaport are simply not needed.
Statistics do not support the $1.2 billion South Fraser Perimeter Road that is currently under construction. Nor do statistics support plans for a second terminal at Deltaport with three new container berths.
It is true that Port Metro Vancouver container business has increased five per cent since last year, making up for the dip during the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. However, it has increased a miniscule 0.1 per cent since 2007.
For years now, the port has been making unrealistic predictions of container growth to help justify port expansion. Back in 2005, the port predicted container traffic would reach between 2.8 and 3.5 million TEUs by 2010.
Thus it tried to justify construction of the third berth at Deltaport, but in reality, the lowest case prediction (as of 2005) of 2.8 million TEUs for 2010 has still not been realized. The actual total for 2010 was 2.5 million TEUs, the same as 2007, so basically there's been no growth at all in five years.
Worse still, Port Metro Vancouver already has the potential to handle 6.7 million TEUs with efficiency improvements and without a new terminal at Deltaport.
In addition, Prince Rupert has the potential to expand and handle another five million TEUs. That would more than quadruple B.C.'s current container traffic capacity, to a total of nearly 12 million TEUs, roughly four times the current total for the whole of Western Canada.
What growth there is will likely be in Prince Rupert, not Vancouver, due to structural advantages (two days less sailing time for starters) that no amount of government aid can take away.
Statistics show the big growth in the container business is in Prince Rupert where business grew 35 per cent in 2010 and 16.5 per cent so far this year.
The infrastructure in Prince Rupert is already in place and they are using only 50 per cent of capacity.
So why spend millions more tax dollars to trash top-grade farmland and critical habitats for salmon, orcas and millions of migratory birds of Canada's major stopover of the Pacific Flyway at the mouth of the Fraser River?
Susan Jones
