Ross Walton, Oceanside Star, Thursday, February 11, 2010

Further to Max Kellermann's excellent letter outlining the health hazards of trucking coal from Fanny Bay to Port Alberni, I want to point out that when Raven Coal Company first announced the proposed coal mine at a public meeting, CEO John Tapics stated there would be either 100 42-ton truckloads of coal per day, one long train load, or two short ones. At an RDN meeting last month, Tapics revealed that trucking was preferred and there would be three truck loads per hour on the highways. We would then have to assume that would mean 72 42-ton truckloads per day and, as one of the RDN directors pointed out to Tapics, the truck traffic would be double that number because these trucks would have to return.

Now we are talking 144 trucks on the road, 24/7. So not only do we have a health hazard from coal dust, we also have a potential safety problem, for as we all know, the Alberni Highway is a scenic, winding mountain drive through Cathedral Grove which is extensively used by tourists year round. And during the wet season, all of these truck loads of coal will get thoroughly washed (72-100 loads a day) on their way to Port Alberni and the water will run off into every watershed from Buckley Bay to Port Alberni (a lot of wash water), as well as at the loading docks in Port Alberni, where the coal dust will be washed into the Alberni Inlet.

As I heard RDN chair Joe Stanhope tell John Tapics at the recent meeting in Nanaimo: "Nasty stuff!"
Ross Walton
Deep Bay