Editor:
Re: Mayor looks to make business case for inland port, April 17
It's all about locating an intermodal yard ... one to serve Port Metro Vancouver's Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (T2), should it be built. An intermodal yard is where containers are moved to and from trains.
Port Metro Vancouver, in an October 2012 Project Definition Consultation guide, suggests the intermodal yard could be located in the marine environment either on the new terminal or an expanded causeway, or in the upland environment. Consultation participants preferred location on the new terminal. Questions revealed the port has no plan for an upland intermodal yard.
By advocating T2 be served by an intermodal yard in Ashcroft, our mayor addresses concerns raised by MLA Vicki Huntington. Huntington informed us of options signed by the Emerson Real Estate Group to purchase farmland near the Deltaport causeway. Beginning in 2010, 11 properties were optioned. With one exception, all options expire on Nov. 30, 2013.
It seems likely to me that Emerson made an early judgment that the intermodal yard might require upland property and purchased options so it could participate in the project should that prove to be the case. Two years later it appears an upland terminal will be needed only if a future environmental review decides T2 can proceed, but only with an offshore footprint too small to accommodate an intermodal yard.
The benefits to anyone, other than Ashcroft, of an intermodal rail yard in Ashcroft are unclear. Low cost and fast delivery demand that containers arriving from Asia bound for central provinces or states be quickly loaded onto trains for those destinations. Placing them on trucks and driving to a remote intermodal yard to load them on a train must surely add significant cost, delay and truck traffic. Driving 350 kilometres to Ashcroft would seem an extreme of each.
These disadvantages seem equally severe for Asia-bound containers utilizing a remote intermodal yard.
The best agricultural land and traffic outcomes for Delta, should T2 be built, would be to ensure there is space on the new offshore terminal for the intermodal yard. If crabs, eelgrass or whatever will be disturbed, Delta should demand habitat compensation to avoid losing agricultural land.
Ed Ries
