One of the region's predominant liquefied natural gas proposals has taken an official step forward.
Pacific NorthWest LNG is the proponent behind a massive LNG port terminal it hopes to build on Lelu Island, a property controlled by the Prince Rupert Port Authority. The gas plant would liquefy natural gas and load it onto ocean liners for customers in Asia.
The company has now submitted its Environmental Impact Statement to federal and provincial environmental protection bodies. To get to this point, it took months of preliminary designs and public consultation.
The filing of our Environmental Impact Statement to both federal and provincial regulatory agencies is a significant milestone in the life of this project, said Greg Kist, President of Pacific NorthWest LNG. This marks a renewed round of consultation and feedback from all interested parties on our proposal and I encourage participation in this rigorous environmental review.
This project resonates across northern B.C. due to the other components of this 900-kilometre industrial project. The natural gas Pacific Northwest LNG hopes to process would come from wells in the Montney Basin in the Fort St. John region. Progress Energy Canada is the production company that would do the work of exploring, drilling and extracting the natural gas.
In between Progress Energy's wells and Pacific Northwest LNG's port facility would be a pipeline built by TransCanada Pipelines under the working title Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project. This aspect of the overall proposal has to go through its own environmental assessment process.
"We are working on our application for an Environmental Assessment Certificate now and expect to file it with the Environmental Assessment Office soon. No firm date has been announced," said Garry Bridgewater, a spokesman for the pipeline segment. "Beginning on the day of submission, the application will be subjected to a 30-day completeness review by the EAO and the working group. The completeness review will ensure that the application meets all the Application Information Requirements. Once the review is complete, a 180-day public review period begins, which includes another public comment period in which we will hold open houses and seek public input to ensure that all potential adverse effects are identified and considered as part of the assessment process."
The preliminary public consultation has already resulted in changes to the original Pacific Northwest LNG draft blueprint.
Some of those improvements include:
- Raising the height of the Lelu Island bridge for marine users
- Raising the height of a section of the jetty trestle for marine users
- Adding a 30m tree and vegetation buffer around most of Lelu Island to provide a natural sound and light barrier.
We want to build the best facility possible, and that means hearing from residents on what their vision is for Pacific NorthWest LNG, Kist said. Pacific NorthWest LNG intends to be a positive contributor to the local economy and a provider of long-term careers for decades to come. The submission of our Environmental Impact Statement is another step in achieving that goal.
The entire three-part proposal is owned by Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned petroleum giant.
