Dear Editor,
Recent ads in the media declaring that the Port of Vancouver is going to “Protect the Habitat” when it builds Terminal 2, angers and frustrates me.
I find it highly misleading, given that none of their studies considered the cumulative effects of Terminal 2, and all the other projects they have and propose to build on the Lower Fraser River, will have on the ecosystem.
The environmental studies and scientific fieldwork they declared were carried out, were done in their interests, not in the interests of the public at large. As such, they paint a picture to show that all is well to build Terminal 2 and that it will not adversely affect the habitat of aquatic and bird life on the Fraser River.
In fact, all major, independent environmental studies undertaken since the Roberts Bank Port began have shown that the causeways and terminals would adversely affect (and in the end destroy) the salmon runs of the Fraser River as well as destroy the habitat of sandpipers and other bird species. The migrating juvenile salmon would be forced still further out from the protection of the shoreline, and all natural current flows into the Salish Sea would be disrupted.
The construction of Terminal 2 would create a disaster no different than Hells Gate or the more recent rock slide in the Fraser Canyon. The project should be stopped.
Douglas George Massey
DELTA
