Port of Vancouver slowdowns have packed the Salish Sea so full that vessels are being turned away

Canada-wide rail blockades to protest the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline have resulted in a near-unprecedented number of backed-up cargo vessels anchored off the Vancouver Island coast.

As of Friday morning, the inlets and passages of Southern Vancouver Island counted 28 moored cargo vessels, according to the ship tracking website MarineTraffic.com. The highest single concentration was a row of six ships lining the coast between Chemainus and Ladysmith.

“The blockades on the railways have really affected the delivery of export products to the coast,” said Bonnie Gee, vice president of the Vancouver-based Chamber of Shipping.

Thursday night screenshot from MarineTraffic.com. Each green dot is a moored freighter awaiting a spot at a Port of Vancouver facility.

All of the backed-up vessels are bulk freighters, meaning that they’re empty vessels primarily from Asia waiting to load Canadian export products such as wheat, potash and coal. The Port of Vancouver has 19 terminals to service bulk freighters, and ships waiting in line for a spot are typically directed to one of 33 anchorages around the Vancouver shoreline, most famously in English Bay.

When those spots fill up, the passages sheltered by the Gulf Islands function as a kind of “overflow parking.”

For years, Gulf Island residents have noticed an uptick in backed-up freighters crowding their waters, but the events of the past few weeks have driven that number into overdrive.

Freighters anchored in Vancouver's English Bay (Source).

“It’s really just made a bad situation worse,” said Chris Straw with the group Gabriolans Against Freighter Anchorages. “We were already seeing much higher than normal levels before the first protests even took place.”

Starting in early February, CN and CP rail lines primarily in Ontario and Quebec have been hit by blockades protesting the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline through the traditional territory of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation in British Columbia’s central interior. Although the pipeline has been approved by the nation’s elected band council, it is opposed by a faction of hereditary chiefs.

