Coal news and updates

Push to quash Texada coal expansion fails

The B.C. Supreme Court has sided with the province’s decision to increase the amount of coal that can be stored at Texada Island — where the coal then gets shipped internationally — after a climate action group tried to have the decision quashed.

The Voters Taking Action on Climate Change group had argued that the provincial Ministry of Energy and Mines never had jurisdiction when it approved the increase in March 2014.

That amendment increased the amount of coal that could be stored on the island to 800,000 tonnes at a time. VTACC said that Texada Quarrying Ltd, which operates the coal handling and storage operations on the island, could previously only store 400,000 tonnes — and that the expansion was made in anticipation of Surrey Fraser Dock’s August 2014 approval for four million tonnes of coal being shipped out per year.

Additionally, the climate change group had argued that government should have required the company to obtain a “discharge permit” in the event that Texada coal gets washed into the environment in heavy rains. The group said coal was found on beach sites near the storage facility on Texada; however, samples collected by government were “found not to contain any coal.” The government also said Texada Quarrying provided stormwater management plans that take into account once-in-a-century storms.

“(VTACC) maintains that TQL’s facility forms part of an integrated plan to significantly increase thermal coal exports from British Columbia, which in turn will cause a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions when coal is burned,” Justice Miriam Gropper wrote in her decision.

The thrust of VTACC’s argument is that the province’s chief inspector of mines dosn’t have “jurisdiction under the Mines Act” to authorize the expansion because a storage facility’s activities “have no connection to a mine.”

The court found the province’s decision was reasonable. The provincial government had argued that VTACC’s interpretation of the Mines Act would have led to the “absurd result” that Texada could operate without “any regulatory oversight” from the ministry if government didn’t have jurisdiction.

source: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca