B.C. Conservative leader John Cummins said Thursday his party would oppose the controversial jet fuel delivery plan through Richmond.
Cummins and his Richmond candidates Carol Day (Richmond-Steveston) and Nathaniel Lim (Richmond East) called a media scrum to the boardwalk at Fishermens Wharf in Steveston to make the announcement.
Cummins said it was time to revamp the governments BC Environmental Assessment Office (BCEAO), which is almost 1,000 days into a review of certifying an airline consortiums jet fuel delivery plan.
The news comes despite Cummins, while serving as a federal MP for Delta-Richmond East three years ago, giving the plan a thumbs-up, saying it was better than having hundreds of tanker trucks on the road.
The Liberal government has ignored some of the fundamental recommendations of the Auditor General, and the current effectiveness of the BC (Environmental Assessment Office) is questionable, said Cummins.
The Auditor General has stated that the EAO is not making appropriate monitoring, compliance and outcome information available to the public, and the approval process for these important projects is taking far too long.
The B.C. Conservatives say they would increase public participation and improve the speed of decisions made by the BCEAO.
The public deserves to know whats going on and its important that local residents have a say. We also need to increase the speed of these environmental assessments. The current Airport Fuel project has taken nearly 1,000 days, a far cry from the so-called guarantee of 180-day approvals, added Cummins.
Day is the co-founder of a protest group called VAPOR, which has lobbied hard against the plan to barge jet fuel up the south arm of the Fraser River, off-load it to a tank farm in south-east Richmond and then pipe it along Highway 99 and through the north of the city to YVR.
The B.C. Tories are echoing VAPORs suggestions of alternative plans, such as upgrading the current pipeline to the Burnaby refinery or the construction of a new pipeline to the Arco refinery at Cherry Point in Washington. Neither option has been reviewed by the BCEAO.
The airline consortium, VAFFC, is adamant that a new fuel source is needed due to, what it says, the unreliability of the current supply and projected increased demand.
