Conservationists decry ‘devastating’ impact of B.C. port expansion on orca, salmon

The approval comes with 370 binding conditions, designed to minimize the project's environmental impact, but conservationists say it will have major impacts on biodiversity.

Conservationists are sounding the alarm about the approval of a massive expansion for the Port of Vancouver in Delta.

On Thursday, the federal government approved the $2 billion Roberts Bank terminal expansion, which will allow the facility to handle an additional 2.4 million containers annually.

The approval comes with 370 legally-binding conditions, designed to minimize the project’s environmental impact, but conservationists say it will have major impacts on biodiversity.

“I’m truly devastated. I think it is devastating news for anybody that cares about the Salish Sea and wants to protect it, and it is devastating for all of us that want to protect the southern resident orcas and want to prevent their extinction,” Georgia Strait Alliance biodiversity lead Lucero Gonzalez told Global News.

“We know that this project will cause significant and lasting adverse effects to the endangered southern resident orcas and their main prey, wild Pacific salmon. And not only them, but the 102 already at risk species that depend on the Fraser River estuary to survive.”

The Port of Vancouver is already a major economic driver for the region and Canada as a whole, contributing about $12 billion to the nation’s GDP.

Roberts Bank 2, as it’s known, will amount to a massive expansion of the terminal, including berths for three more ships and the infill of 122 hectares of new land.

With projections showing that the region’s west coast ports will be at capacity by the 2030s, the government says the case for the expansion is clear.