As the No. 2 exporter of coal in North America, Port Metro Vancouver has found itself, suddenly, on the hot seat. It’s being blamed for contributing to global warming on an international scale and for increasing coal dust and noise pollution locally. The environmental backlash is sure to mount as B.C. ramps up production and landlocked U.S. producers try to gain access to Asian markets through Vancouver’s port. Is that fair? After all, coal mining and transportation has provided well-paying jobs in British Columbia for decades, and Port Metro Vancouver requires terminal operators to take steps to reduce dust and noise. Even now, environmental groups on both sides of the border are banding together to form a unified front in their fight to halt coal shipments. And on both sides of the border, the debate is pitting rural communities against cities along the West coast, including Vancouver and Seattle, where environmental concerns and sensibilities outweigh the benefits of economic activity and job generated by coal. British Columbia is partly to blame for the debate. The province has operated on two fronts: creating policies to address climate change but also promoting carbon-producing, fossil-fuel industries. In 2007, aggressive goals were set to reduce British Columbia’s greenhouse gas emissions by one third from 2007 levels by 2020, and by 80 per cent in time for 2050. At the same time, the province and Canada has promoted Vancouver as a key North American gateway to Asia, and fostered the province’s resource extraction industry, focusing recently on natural gas, but also expanding coal production. It’s a seemingly irreconcilable situation, and in the Lower Mainland has been playing out constantly under a barrage of press releases, events staged to grab media attention (hanging an anti-coal banner at Canada Place where American-owned cruise ships dock) and emotional public meetings. • Environmental groups are taking a two-fold approach. Their first focus is squarely on coal as a significant source of global warming, which causes sea levels to rise and increases the frequency of extreme weather events. Coal has a reputation as the world’s most dangerous global warming substance, says Will Horter, executive director of the Dogwood Initiative. “If you compare that to the drug regime, we are the pushers,” said Horter. “You don’t allow heroin to be used in your country, but we’ll send it abroad for you. That’s essentially the role our government is (playing).” The Victoria-based Dogwood Initiative is co-operating with the U.S. Pacific Northwest coalition, Power Past Coal, whose aim is to stop proposed coal terminals in Washington and Oregon states. In B.C, Dogwood, Voters Taking Action Against Climate Change, the Wilderness Committee and a half dozen other locally-based environmental groups want to stop the proposed $15-million coal-handling facility on the Fraser River in Surrey, which would ship thermal coal from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. Producers in Wyoming, the largest U.S. coal-producing state, are looking for new markets after some power plants in the U.S. switched cleaner, cheap natural gas to produce power.

But they also face an environmental backlash of their own as resistance to three proposed coal export terminals in Washington and Oregon (down from six) is fierce. Wyoming coal producers have no access to Asia because there are no large dedicated coal-handling terminals on the U.S. West Coast. Against this backdrop of increasing pressure to export more coal through Port Metro Vancouver terminals, environmentalists say British Columbia must take a stand now to help reverse global warming before it is too late. Kevin Washbrook, spokesman for the Vancouver-based Voters Taking Action on Climate Change, points to the Paris-based International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2012 report, which states two thirds of all proven fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground if the world is serious about avoiding climate change. “Within five years, we are going to be locked into runaway climate change. I wouldn’t see anybody connecting the dots between that and let’s build more export capacity and build more coal mines. And that’s crazy. That’s literally ignoring reality and it’s starting to stress people out,” Washbrook said. • On a second front, the environmental groups are building their case by teaming up with community groups whose main charge is against coal dust, increased rail traffic, noise and railway diesel emissions. In White Rock, Maureen Coroliuc has the front windows of her tea and gift shop on Marine Drive cleaned twice a month. If she doesn’t, the buildup of grime dirties her windows and deters customers. Coroliuc blames dust that “billows” off coal trains, and wonders why the coal cars aren’t covered. “If we don’t start talking about this issue, what is going to happen to the next generation?” she asked. But terminal operators, rail operators and workers insist coal dust is not a big issue. In the proposed Fraser Surrey Docks facility, coal will be handled inside a building to reduce the amount of dust escaping, and a liquid chemical topping will be sprayed on the coal in rail cars to prevent dust escaping during rail delivery to Surrey. At Westshore Terminals at Roberts Bank, where U.S. coal is already being handled, the company has spent $12.5-million to upgrade the water spraying system it uses to suppress dust. “Our own testing has consistently shown the incidences of coal dust in the South Delta area is negligible,” says David Crook, Westshore’s manager of engineering and environmental services. BNSF Railway, which delivers coal trains from the U.S. to Vancouver, maintains it is not necessary to add coverings because the topping substance used to reduce coal dust works well. BNSF spokesman Courtney Wallace said she is not aware of any company in North America that uses covers on the open-topped railcars used to haul coal. • Coal shippers also say it’s unfair to target Vancouver for increasing coal shipments when 40 per cent of the world energy needs are reliant on the cheap source.

B.C. Wharf Operators chairman Brad Eshleman acknowledged climate change is a big and emotionally charged issue. However, he stressed it’s also a complicated issue because coal is helping nations develop and bring people out of poverty. “I’m not sure this is the (way) to stop it, penalize a terminal operator because of concerns over climate change,” said Eshleman. It is not only environmental groups that are raising concerns. Earlier this month, Metro Vancouver with the support of Vancouver, Burnaby and the City of North Vancouver, passed a resolution opposing new coal shipments from the Fraser River estuary, citing local airshed and global climate change concerns. The City of Vancouver is considering a bylaw to prohibit handling and storage of coal within its limits (there are no coal port facilities in the city). In the U.S., Seattle mayor Mike McGinn, a former Sierra Club state chair, has taken a strong stand against coal exports. • The workers and communities that rely on the coal for jobs have a different view. There are no fewer than 10 coal mines in B.C., with at least another nine proposed. The existing coal industry provides 26,000 direct and spinoff jobs and a $3.2-billion boost to the province’s economy in 2011, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report commissioned by the Canadian Coal Association. The jobs pay well, too; the average coal-mining wage was $97,000 in 2011. The jobs at B.C.’s ports are plentiful and also pay well: 57,000 direct and spinoff jobs in the Lower Mainland where the average wage is $67,000, according to Port Metro’s 2012 economic impact study. Coal exports accounts for about one third of the port’s business. In B.C.’s southern Interior, Teck’s five coal mines are the economic lifeblood of communities such as Sparwood and Elkview. If the coal mines shut down, the communities would be finished, says Alex Hanson, a coal worker for five years before he became president of the United Steelworkers local 9346. It’s why workers there are concerned with the growing anti-coal movement in the Lower Mainland. Hanson says Elk Valley residents are concerned about climate change, but stresses he believes there is a big difference between the metallurgical coal used to produce steel mined in the Elk Valley and thermal coal used to produce electricity. Unlike the thermal coal from Wyoming, virtually all of the coal produced in B.C. is metallurgical coal. There’s little society can do without steel, said Hanson, pointing to the steel in wheels, highrise buildings and used to produce green-energy infrastructure such as wind turbines. “They are looking for a scapegoat: coal looks black and dirty, so let’s go after it,” observed Hanson. That urban-rural divide also exists in the U.S. Lauri Hennessey, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Alliance for Northwest Jobs and Exports, says she believes people in Seattle simply don’t like the idea of exporting natural resources or being in the natural resource business.