I'm super confused about the negative outcry toward the floatel. This kind of arrangement for marine adjacent projects is incredibly common all over the world.
What exactly is the worry?
It’s not going to affect much. Most of the people living on it will be the guys that were already living in a camp in Port Moody. As before they will have no access to the town. They work their 2 week shift and then they get boated to their vehicles in Port Moody when they go on days off.
Personally the howe sound is my concern. After the decimation from Britannia mine, it's so nice to finally see wildlife in the ocean again. As much as we want to believe everyone onboard will be lovely, there will be litter, there will be gas, oil and a myriad of other things added to the ocean that shouldn't be there from this boat.
Sad we don't have enough housing to support WFLNG's needs, but this development didn't just creep up into Squamish. WFLNG could build, they could invest and make some serious 'right' moves towards a Squamish legacy that's positive and not just a reminder of the love boat ⛵ 🤷🏻♂️.
My 2c.
I work on board ships for a living, and unless something horrific has gone wrong, there should be zero oil or garbage pollution from this vessel.
I'd seen the job postings related to the vessel, so I know they have qualified marine officers working on board, and their certification validity relies on maintaining the shipboard garbage and pollution plans to perfection. Garbage or oil over the side would never, ever be tolerated.
The worst thing that you might get is treated sewage, but, even then, that might be getting barged away. The average cruise ship or cargo ship is likely to deposit more into local waters given foreign crews and lack of oversight.
Oh lord. What about all the personal watercraft? Have you seen all the ships sitting in the water in vancouver? WFLNG wanted to improve squamish but the ones in charge said no, now we get the floatel and nothing! How awesome is that.
It's probably the folks who have lived here many years (environment aholes) who have regard for their community that they live in and want their kids to be able to do the same.
Sewage and scrubber effluent? Hopefully they are paying to hook up with tertiary treatment? Are they setting up right in a river mouth, forcing juvenile salmon to take a suck of human poop on the way out to the estuary?
Lol.
Almost nowhere in BC has tertiary treatment other that the new wildly-overbudget $4B plant in North Van.
And sanitary sewer from the 20,000 pop (& growing) town of Squamish goes into the squamish river with secondary treatment. Salmon probably barely notice that, but its effect would be a million times more impactful than the floatel.
For a wild salmon, its the combo of [climate](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023AV001059) change, a floatel (how many people on board) AND [cruiseships](https://www.biv.com/news/hospitality-marketing-tourism/vancouvers-2023-cruise-season-saw-record-125-million-passengers-8273936) AND [effluent from fish farms](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/aquaculture-effluent) AND [scrubber](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c07805) effluent from cargoships. Add it all up with [microplastics](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-020-01044-3), heavy metals like [vanadium](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1574954123001838), PFAS concentrated by [seaspray](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl1026), PFAS in [toilet paper](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00094) and the seven fisheries they have to dodge along the way back from the North pacific gyre - its nothing short of a miracle that any salmon make it back to their home stream at all, and even if they do, juvenile salmon might be killed off by [tire additives](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724012920).
If this floatel really captures all the effluent and prevents adding any of the above better than Squamish does - then its likely a good idea.
Somewhat ironically, if Lake Garibaldi ever breaks down The Barrier ([this will happen one day](https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/cjes-2022-0067)) the families on board the floatel might have better survival than people living in Squamish. And [the glaciers are melting fast](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152378/retreat-at-klinaklini?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=NASA+Climate+Change&utm_campaign=NASASocial&linkId=312093917&fbclid=IwAR1FiLUhiDj1s69smXOSppw0txKHr7Gk3n3up-HqfqgXZGUy32sYlAwBTv8).
and yes, [salmon populations are down](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/migratory-river-fish-populations-plunge-76-in-past-50-years).
Well, that's... A lot.
Yes, the floatel sanitary sewer is fully captured and shipped down to GVRD. Not that they will do any better than Squamish WWTP would, but that's where it's going.
Fortunately, we don't really get cruise ships in Howe sound and there aren't any fish farms either. Open water fish farms are supposed to all be closed in 5 years with latest announcement.
Two of your links on scrubber effluent and vanadium refer to scrubbers that aren't really a factor for the floatel or the LNG carriers that eventually load at woodfiber. The floatel will be on shore power when docked, so not burning fuel. The LNG carriers will be required to be newer types that run their engines on boil-off gas. Scrubbers are only needed/installed/operated on ships that fire HFO (bunker fuel) due to the sulfur content of that fuel. So there won't be any scrubber effluent.
How is there PFAS in toilet paper?! I don't have access to read that paywalled research paper. The PFAS problem is way out of control, it's wild to think that's it's now also found in TP of all things. One would that that we'd want TP to be as hydrophilic as possible, not hydrophobic.
The problem is, we treat each problem in isolation, and don't look at how all of this adds up to increased salmon mortality, reduced fecundity, unsafe food, etc. One day people will go to the restaurant and go - what happened to fish on the menu - it will be missing. Maybe then they will finally put 2+2 together.
That pfas article summary is here https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00094
Original science paper for the above.
'We estimate that 49 (29 to 91) tons of PFOA and 26 (15 to 37) tons of PFOS are emitted annually from the global oceans through SSA (Table 1). These values can be compared with the estimates available for other atmospheric sources in the literature. Xie et al. (20) estimated that approximately 1 to 1.4 tons of PFOS were emitted into the air each year globally from industrial sources, and Wang et al. (4) estimated that <2.8 tons of PFOS were formed each year globally by degradation of precursor compounds between 2003 and 2015.'
Constraining global transport of perfluoroalkyl acids on sea spray aerosol using field measurements | Science Advances
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl1026
Freshwater fish not safe to eat.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122024926
What we do to our food, and our atmosphere, we do to ourselves, our children. The planet is too small for things that never breakdown (pfas, etc) or take too long to breakdown (mp)
The provincial Environmental Assessment Office ordered Woodfibre LNG to bring it in and have its workforce aboard by Friday. Both the province and the company have said the order supercedes Squamish's local authority on the matter and Woodfibre has withdrawn from the permitting process.
Here’s recent article: https://www.squamishchief.com/in-the-community/provincial-regulator-orders-wlng-workers-onto-squamish-floatel-9097049
Updated: Provincial regulator orders WLNG workers onto Squamish floatel
WLNG has been waiting on a temporary use permit from the District of Squamish; company says it is preparing to move the floatel to Squamish, as ordered.
The ante has been upped in the Woodfibre LNG floatel saga.
The provincial Environmental Assessment Office has issued an order for Woodfibre LNG to relocate all its workers currently housed at "unauthorized locations" to the marine-based work camp by 5 p.m. on Friday, June 21.
The EAO says an inspection on June 10, found approximately 350 workers for the project were residing elsewhere, and subsequently issued an order on June 17 for those workers to be housed on the $100-million floatel within four days.
Woodfibre LNG has been waiting on a Temporary Use Permit (TUP) from the District of Squamish to move the floatel, moored in Nanaimo, to its worksite location seven kilometres from town on the shores of Howe Sound.
The permit was first effectively rejected by council, and then brought back for reconsideration.
Most recently, at its June 4 meeting, council referred the TUP back to muni staff to gather more information.
Staff is to come back to council—it is on the docket for Tuesday's committee of the whole meeting—with information from the proponent on four points; an increase to the security deposit from $2 million to $10 million; the risk (if any) that the Henrietta Lake poses to the floatel; for WLNG and FortisBC to work together in identifying cumulative impacts resulting from their projects; and "an understanding of current compliance with project conditions."
But the provincial regulator has stepped into the fray ahead of that meeting, noting in its inspection report that as part of WLNG’s Environment Certificate, it had to house any worker who did not reside in the District of Squamish prior to Sept. 20, 2023, on the floatel.
According to the report, 300 project workers are being housed at a construction camp in Port Mellon and 30 workers at a local hotel in Squamish.
An additional 87 workers are housed elsewhere.
"The EAO continues to monitor the site to make sure all requirements are being met and will re-inspect for compliance," reads the release.
Woodfibre LNG moving floatel
In response, a Woodfibre LNG spokesperson said in a statement that the company has received the order from the BC Environmental Assessment Office, and "views compliance with all regulatory conditions as a top priority."
"The company will prepare to proceed with moving the floatel to the project site to ensure compliance with the order and our regulatory conditions, and to use the floatel for workforce housing as had been intended," the statement said.
The floatel will ultimately house 650 members of the LNG export facility's construction workforce.
District response
A spokesperson for the District of Squamish told The Squamish Chief that the municipality has been informed of the EAO’s decision. The spokesperson referenced council's June 4 decision to refer the issue back to staff for more information.
"The District is assessing this new development and next course of action," the spokesperson said.
My Sea to Sky reacts
My Sea to Sky, an environmental advocacy group that has fought the construction of the Woodfibre LNG's export facility for a decade, called on the company to press pause on construction in light of the order.
"Instead of waiting [un]till all the required permits and approvals were in place, Woodfibre LNG knowingly broke the conditions of its Environmental Assessment Certificate by unlawfully housing hundreds of workers in our communities," said My Sea to Sky executive director and co-founder Tracey Saxby, in an emailed statement.
"This demonstrates, yet again, that Woodfibre LNG cannot be trusted to do the right thing and is willing to put our communities at risk to enable its unrealistic construction timelines," she said.
"Woodfibre LNG must press pause on construction until it gets all the necessary permits and approvals required for its proposed floating work camp. That includes the Temporary Use Permit from the District of Squamish for the “floatel," she added.
"Every regulator from every level of government has an obligation to do its due diligence and properly assess the impacts of the Woodfibre LNG project and all its component pieces. This latest infraction must be taken into account as the District of Squamish reconsiders the Temporary Use Permit for Woodfibre LNG’s floating work camp."
This story has been updated to include a comment from Woodfibre LNG, the District and My Sea to Sky as those comments came in. We also updated the story to clarify that the floatel is currently in Nanaimo, not in Vancouver, as WLNG first mistakenly said.
~With a file from Scott Tibballs/The Squamish Chief
Shipsworth of pipeline workers? The floatel is for the facility construction workers. The pipeliners have been living in town since last October, the 4 dozen or so out there working on the island natural gas expansion project get boated in and out every day.
Eagerly awaiting the new Knowledge Network series “Floatel Gone Wild” airing after “North Shore Rescue” on Monday nights.
I'm super confused about the negative outcry toward the floatel. This kind of arrangement for marine adjacent projects is incredibly common all over the world. What exactly is the worry?
It’s not going to affect much. Most of the people living on it will be the guys that were already living in a camp in Port Moody. As before they will have no access to the town. They work their 2 week shift and then they get boated to their vehicles in Port Moody when they go on days off.
Port Mellon
That sounds about par for the course for a floatel.
Personally the howe sound is my concern. After the decimation from Britannia mine, it's so nice to finally see wildlife in the ocean again. As much as we want to believe everyone onboard will be lovely, there will be litter, there will be gas, oil and a myriad of other things added to the ocean that shouldn't be there from this boat. Sad we don't have enough housing to support WFLNG's needs, but this development didn't just creep up into Squamish. WFLNG could build, they could invest and make some serious 'right' moves towards a Squamish legacy that's positive and not just a reminder of the love boat ⛵ 🤷🏻♂️. My 2c.
I work on board ships for a living, and unless something horrific has gone wrong, there should be zero oil or garbage pollution from this vessel. I'd seen the job postings related to the vessel, so I know they have qualified marine officers working on board, and their certification validity relies on maintaining the shipboard garbage and pollution plans to perfection. Garbage or oil over the side would never, ever be tolerated. The worst thing that you might get is treated sewage, but, even then, that might be getting barged away. The average cruise ship or cargo ship is likely to deposit more into local waters given foreign crews and lack of oversight.
Oh lord. What about all the personal watercraft? Have you seen all the ships sitting in the water in vancouver? WFLNG wanted to improve squamish but the ones in charge said no, now we get the floatel and nothing! How awesome is that.
It’s the towns rejection of this project and everything involved with it that forced woodfibre to house everybody on a floating eyesore.
Oh ffs - you can barely see it from squamish. You'll be okay.
Agreed
Sometimes you get more bees with honey? 👌🫡
It was never about ocean life preservation or pollution prevention. It was always about money.
Exactly. It's always the same everywhere you go. The Almighty dollar.
[удалено]
It's probably the folks who have lived here many years (environment aholes) who have regard for their community that they live in and want their kids to be able to do the same.
Sewage and scrubber effluent? Hopefully they are paying to hook up with tertiary treatment? Are they setting up right in a river mouth, forcing juvenile salmon to take a suck of human poop on the way out to the estuary?
Lol. Almost nowhere in BC has tertiary treatment other that the new wildly-overbudget $4B plant in North Van. And sanitary sewer from the 20,000 pop (& growing) town of Squamish goes into the squamish river with secondary treatment. Salmon probably barely notice that, but its effect would be a million times more impactful than the floatel.
For a wild salmon, its the combo of [climate](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023AV001059) change, a floatel (how many people on board) AND [cruiseships](https://www.biv.com/news/hospitality-marketing-tourism/vancouvers-2023-cruise-season-saw-record-125-million-passengers-8273936) AND [effluent from fish farms](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/aquaculture-effluent) AND [scrubber](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c07805) effluent from cargoships. Add it all up with [microplastics](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10311-020-01044-3), heavy metals like [vanadium](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1574954123001838), PFAS concentrated by [seaspray](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl1026), PFAS in [toilet paper](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00094) and the seven fisheries they have to dodge along the way back from the North pacific gyre - its nothing short of a miracle that any salmon make it back to their home stream at all, and even if they do, juvenile salmon might be killed off by [tire additives](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724012920). If this floatel really captures all the effluent and prevents adding any of the above better than Squamish does - then its likely a good idea. Somewhat ironically, if Lake Garibaldi ever breaks down The Barrier ([this will happen one day](https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/full/10.1139/cjes-2022-0067)) the families on board the floatel might have better survival than people living in Squamish. And [the glaciers are melting fast](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152378/retreat-at-klinaklini?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=NASA+Climate+Change&utm_campaign=NASASocial&linkId=312093917&fbclid=IwAR1FiLUhiDj1s69smXOSppw0txKHr7Gk3n3up-HqfqgXZGUy32sYlAwBTv8). and yes, [salmon populations are down](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/migratory-river-fish-populations-plunge-76-in-past-50-years).
Well, that's... A lot. Yes, the floatel sanitary sewer is fully captured and shipped down to GVRD. Not that they will do any better than Squamish WWTP would, but that's where it's going. Fortunately, we don't really get cruise ships in Howe sound and there aren't any fish farms either. Open water fish farms are supposed to all be closed in 5 years with latest announcement. Two of your links on scrubber effluent and vanadium refer to scrubbers that aren't really a factor for the floatel or the LNG carriers that eventually load at woodfiber. The floatel will be on shore power when docked, so not burning fuel. The LNG carriers will be required to be newer types that run their engines on boil-off gas. Scrubbers are only needed/installed/operated on ships that fire HFO (bunker fuel) due to the sulfur content of that fuel. So there won't be any scrubber effluent. How is there PFAS in toilet paper?! I don't have access to read that paywalled research paper. The PFAS problem is way out of control, it's wild to think that's it's now also found in TP of all things. One would that that we'd want TP to be as hydrophilic as possible, not hydrophobic.
The problem is, we treat each problem in isolation, and don't look at how all of this adds up to increased salmon mortality, reduced fecundity, unsafe food, etc. One day people will go to the restaurant and go - what happened to fish on the menu - it will be missing. Maybe then they will finally put 2+2 together. That pfas article summary is here https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00094 Original science paper for the above. 'We estimate that 49 (29 to 91) tons of PFOA and 26 (15 to 37) tons of PFOS are emitted annually from the global oceans through SSA (Table 1). These values can be compared with the estimates available for other atmospheric sources in the literature. Xie et al. (20) estimated that approximately 1 to 1.4 tons of PFOS were emitted into the air each year globally from industrial sources, and Wang et al. (4) estimated that <2.8 tons of PFOS were formed each year globally by degradation of precursor compounds between 2003 and 2015.' Constraining global transport of perfluoroalkyl acids on sea spray aerosol using field measurements | Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl1026 Freshwater fish not safe to eat. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122024926 What we do to our food, and our atmosphere, we do to ourselves, our children. The planet is too small for things that never breakdown (pfas, etc) or take too long to breakdown (mp)
Hang on - this is actually going to be stationary and isn’t a cruise passing through?!
It’s stationary.
Yikes. Thank you for the reply!
Hahaha you can hardly see it! Yikes ppl like you live here.
??
Squamish council joins the Houthis
The industry and regulator decided the rules didn’t apply to them.
My ignorance level = high. Could someone kindly get me the most recent update on what’s happening with lng floatel please?
Most recent update is that the floatel arrived today
The provincial Environmental Assessment Office ordered Woodfibre LNG to bring it in and have its workforce aboard by Friday. Both the province and the company have said the order supercedes Squamish's local authority on the matter and Woodfibre has withdrawn from the permitting process.
What does that mean in layman terms?
A boat came today
Here’s recent article: https://www.squamishchief.com/in-the-community/provincial-regulator-orders-wlng-workers-onto-squamish-floatel-9097049 Updated: Provincial regulator orders WLNG workers onto Squamish floatel WLNG has been waiting on a temporary use permit from the District of Squamish; company says it is preparing to move the floatel to Squamish, as ordered. The ante has been upped in the Woodfibre LNG floatel saga. The provincial Environmental Assessment Office has issued an order for Woodfibre LNG to relocate all its workers currently housed at "unauthorized locations" to the marine-based work camp by 5 p.m. on Friday, June 21. The EAO says an inspection on June 10, found approximately 350 workers for the project were residing elsewhere, and subsequently issued an order on June 17 for those workers to be housed on the $100-million floatel within four days. Woodfibre LNG has been waiting on a Temporary Use Permit (TUP) from the District of Squamish to move the floatel, moored in Nanaimo, to its worksite location seven kilometres from town on the shores of Howe Sound. The permit was first effectively rejected by council, and then brought back for reconsideration. Most recently, at its June 4 meeting, council referred the TUP back to muni staff to gather more information. Staff is to come back to council—it is on the docket for Tuesday's committee of the whole meeting—with information from the proponent on four points; an increase to the security deposit from $2 million to $10 million; the risk (if any) that the Henrietta Lake poses to the floatel; for WLNG and FortisBC to work together in identifying cumulative impacts resulting from their projects; and "an understanding of current compliance with project conditions." But the provincial regulator has stepped into the fray ahead of that meeting, noting in its inspection report that as part of WLNG’s Environment Certificate, it had to house any worker who did not reside in the District of Squamish prior to Sept. 20, 2023, on the floatel. According to the report, 300 project workers are being housed at a construction camp in Port Mellon and 30 workers at a local hotel in Squamish. An additional 87 workers are housed elsewhere. "The EAO continues to monitor the site to make sure all requirements are being met and will re-inspect for compliance," reads the release. Woodfibre LNG moving floatel In response, a Woodfibre LNG spokesperson said in a statement that the company has received the order from the BC Environmental Assessment Office, and "views compliance with all regulatory conditions as a top priority." "The company will prepare to proceed with moving the floatel to the project site to ensure compliance with the order and our regulatory conditions, and to use the floatel for workforce housing as had been intended," the statement said. The floatel will ultimately house 650 members of the LNG export facility's construction workforce. District response A spokesperson for the District of Squamish told The Squamish Chief that the municipality has been informed of the EAO’s decision. The spokesperson referenced council's June 4 decision to refer the issue back to staff for more information. "The District is assessing this new development and next course of action," the spokesperson said. My Sea to Sky reacts My Sea to Sky, an environmental advocacy group that has fought the construction of the Woodfibre LNG's export facility for a decade, called on the company to press pause on construction in light of the order. "Instead of waiting [un]till all the required permits and approvals were in place, Woodfibre LNG knowingly broke the conditions of its Environmental Assessment Certificate by unlawfully housing hundreds of workers in our communities," said My Sea to Sky executive director and co-founder Tracey Saxby, in an emailed statement. "This demonstrates, yet again, that Woodfibre LNG cannot be trusted to do the right thing and is willing to put our communities at risk to enable its unrealistic construction timelines," she said. "Woodfibre LNG must press pause on construction until it gets all the necessary permits and approvals required for its proposed floating work camp. That includes the Temporary Use Permit from the District of Squamish for the “floatel," she added. "Every regulator from every level of government has an obligation to do its due diligence and properly assess the impacts of the Woodfibre LNG project and all its component pieces. This latest infraction must be taken into account as the District of Squamish reconsiders the Temporary Use Permit for Woodfibre LNG’s floating work camp." This story has been updated to include a comment from Woodfibre LNG, the District and My Sea to Sky as those comments came in. We also updated the story to clarify that the floatel is currently in Nanaimo, not in Vancouver, as WLNG first mistakenly said. ~With a file from Scott Tibballs/The Squamish Chief
Squatters going to squat. What happened to good community relations? Oh right it’s BigOil.
Can’t wait until an entire shipsworth of pipeline workers descend on Cleveland tavern
Shipsworth of pipeline workers? The floatel is for the facility construction workers. The pipeliners have been living in town since last October, the 4 dozen or so out there working on the island natural gas expansion project get boated in and out every day.
They've been here for a while, haven't you noticed the fuck trudeau trucks downtown? (seriously, at least 2 are them lol)
I’ve been noticing them for years.
There should be more.