Editor:
I see many of those polled were unaware of Fraser Surrey Docks plan to ship coal from Wyoming via Texada Island to China.
This is not surprising due to the project quietly getting off the ground without the publicity afforded the pipeline proposals. There can be no doubt if (heaven forbid) the coal dock becomes reality, folks living in this part of the Lower Mainland will become well aware that up to eight million tonnes of U.S. coal will come across the border annually.
White Rock will have to contend with an extra eight trains a day (four full, four empty) with the resulting diesel fumes and other hazards.
Undoubtedly, there will eventually be an exposed pile of coal at FSD. They have applied for an area of 2.47 acres to accommodate it (for emergency situations).
Open barges will carry the coal down the Fraser River, through the Strait of Georgia on the way to Texada Island for trans-shipment to China.
Here again, with a distinct lack of publicity for those who will be affected, Lafarge has applied to increase their Texada coal dock by twentyfold, from 400,000 to eight million tonnes.
If our neighbours to the south have said, “No more coal docks,” why can’t we?
David Gibbs, Surrey
•••
As a young person I grew up in the Greater London area with coal fires being our main source of heat.
I appeal to those of you who have not had the ‘pleasure’ of living in close proximity to coal, coal products and the requisite dust, to consider the detrimental health issues of allowing this travesty to continue.
I am not dramatizing the effects upon the health of most of my contemporaries, and of the generations prior to us, when I tell you of the ongoing respiratory problems and diseases we are all dealing with now that we are in our twilight years.
I am in my seventies and have had bronchitis and bouts of pneumonia in the last few years.
My parents both died with lung infections, also my grandparents and various other family members – all attributed to the environment.
Should you ask any of the residents of South Delta living near Roberts Bank, you will find that they live constantly with a fine film of black dust in and around their homes – as for breathing this in… only time will tell.
Why do you think that the residents of Washington state and Oregon do not want a coal port in either of their areas?
If it is not OK for them, why should it be for us?
Are we to become, in the modern idiom, ‘collateral damage’?
Jean L. Fisher, White Rock
