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WIN! Victoria & Cowichan Valley chapters celebrate Steelhead withdrawing proposal for Saanich Inlet LNG plant

A Cowichan Valley chapter public forum on the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry featuring Dr. Eoin Finn and Ben Parfitt, April 2017.


The Council of Canadians Victoria and Cowichan Valley chapters helped to organize against the proposed Steelhead LNG project on Saanich Inlet.


CHEK reports, “Steelhead LNG will no longer be looking at building a floating LNG processing plant on Malahat First Nation owned Bamberton industrial lands. The project was announced for the Saanich Inlet south of Mill Bay in August of 2015. It immediately proved controversial garnering stiff opposition including from other First Nations in the area. Late Friday, Steelhead LNG confirmed it is no longer moving ahead with the project.”


The Victoria chapter co-organized this community forum with friends and allies in opposition to the project in February 2016, while the Cowichan Valley chapter held this public forum in April of this year.


The LNG processing plant would have been moored to jetties along the Saanich Inlet shoreline. It would have received gas via a 128-kilometre pipeline that would have run underwater across the Georgia Strait south of Salt Spring Island to Saanich Inlet. There would have been one LNG carrier loading at the facility every 3-5 days.


On October 2, 2015, in the last days of the Harper government, the Canadian Press reported, “Steelhead says the National Energy Board has approved a 25-year licence for the annual export of up to six million tonnes of LNG from a proposed floating liquefaction and export terminal in Saanich Inlet.”


Congratulations to all individuals and organizations – notably the Sierra Club BC, the Saanich Inlet Network, Divest Victoria, the Dogwood Initiative, and the Wilderness Committee – who worked to stop this LNG project.


A threat still remains though.


The Victoria Times Colonist reports, “[Steelhead LNG says it is still] excited about developing its Kwispaa LNG (formerly Sarita LNG) project in partnership with Huu-ay-aht First Nations. That project, located southwest of Port Alberni, would adhere to ‘clear conditions for LNG development’ set out by the province’s new NDP government.”


The Pembina Institute has previously stated, “Together, the two plants [Malahat and Sarita Bay] and their associated upstream operations could result in the drilling of 384 extra gas wells, the emission of 16.9 million tonnes of carbon pollution, and the usage of 7.9 million cubic metres of freshwater per year.”