First steps towards doubling the capacity of Port Metro Vancouver’s, and Canada’s, largest container terminal are underway.
Public consultations involving the port, municipal officials, First Nations and special interest groups have been launched and port president and CEO, Robin Silvester, told
AJOT that lessons learned during the consultation process leading up to the completion of the C$400 million third berth at Deltaport last January are providing guidelines for the process.
“We want to consult with the public at much more than just the minimum required level,” he said. “We decided to start the communications process somewhat earlier than you might traditionally if you were just following the assessment process.”
Silvester said he had just recently met with First Nations and the municipal council of Delta, B.C, which is responsible for the area where the new terminal will be built. “We don’t have a defined project that we’re about to start approval on, we’re at the stage of starting to define the project with a view towards going into a formal approval process probably early next year,” he said
Sylvester said a large proportion of the questions related to the coming demand for more capacity, the impact on local traffic and the environment. Questions from the Tsawwassen First Nations also include questions about employment during and after construction as well as business opportunities that could result from the opening of the terminal.
Silvester said there will be two major phases to the process:
- Making sure the port maximizes the use of the existing infrastructure in Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River and Delta
- The requirements for Terminal Two that will result from both the planning process and input from the various stakeholders.
“Our view on the requirements of Terminal Two is that it (completion of construction) is around the 2020 mark,” he said. “We are projecting that container traffic through Canada’s Pacific Northwest is going to double in the next 10 to 15 years and probably triple by 2013.”
If these growth projections are correct Port Metro Vancouver will require a major increase in capacity by 2020 since it will have maximized what it can get out of existing facilities.
“We envisage having the design work and the environmental preparation done over a 12-month period with a number of consultations over the initial twelve months and then to move into environmental assessments which will probably be a three-year process,” he said.
Assuming the environmental assessment is approved without major delays the port president said the construction process will then begin and is likely to take about four years.
He said the annual capacity of Terminal 2 will likely match that of the existing Deltaport at “a couple of million TEUs.”
Once Terminal 2 is completed the box handling capacity of the two Point Roberts facilities in the southwest corner of British Columbia will approach or exceed three million TEUs annually.
Sylvester also said he expects Terminal 2, when it’s completed, will be a state-of-the-art terminal and “more than likely” an automated terminal.
A major project that will support the opening of Terminal 2 will be the improved access by rail and truck provided by the developments of the Asia-Pacific Corridor initiative and, in particular, the completion of the South Fraser Perimeter Road and additional rail yard facilities and container storage on shore east of the terminal.
The South Fraser Perimeter Road, now under construction, will provide a new four-lane, highway with an 80 km/h to the port from the Trans-Canada Highway and highways extending south into the State of Washington, relieving much of the congestion and providing improved access for seaborne containers to U.S. markets.
“When you put the pieces of the jigsaw together,” he said, “the South Fraser Perimeter Road, the Roberts Bank Rail Corridor, overpasses and grade separations … are making sure that we have an integrated supply chain capacity thr
