Richmond’s mayor questions motivation behind plans for jet fuel pipeline to YVR

RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) – A consortium of airlines with plans for a pipeline to send jet fuel across Richmond to YVR wants to make a few tweaks. But those amendments are causing Richmond’s mayor to question the motivation behind the project.

The Vancouver Airport Fuel Facilities Corporation (VAFFC) has asked the BC Environmental Assessment Office to approve a few changes, including an increase in the diameter of the pipe by about 32mm.

It also wants to make some changes to the pipe’s route.

“The changes are following significant input from major stakeholders such as landowners along the corridor, the City of Richmond themselves and, of course, YVR. So these are sort of a culmination of consultation over the last couple of years since the certificate was issued. While we’ve been working with the port on the port permits, we’ve also been talking at length with the stakeholders on the pipeline. So this is really to update the certificate to reflect other options along the corridor that we think better mitigate major stakeholder concerns,” says Adrian Pollard with VAFFC.

Richmond Mayor Malcom Brodie says the extra capacity makes him wonder whether YVR is the only airport the group wants the project to serve.

“Or are they planning to set up some kind of a distribution system and set up where they will be supplying, potentially supplying other airports?” he asks.

“We’re going to be considering the report [tonight]. I’ll be going to General Purposes Committee and then to council. And I plan to raise this issue as part of the discussion relating to the airline consortium and the plans for the jet fuel line in Richmond. Overall, I still come back to the question: Given that the airport is on the river — it’s surrounded by water — why is it that they are bringing jet fuel to the diametrically opposite corner of our city and then piping it across the city, through the highway and right out to the airport, rather than just simply bringing it right in to the airport — close in — and then we would have no objection to it?”

We asked the consortium whether it has any plans for the line to serve other airports; the answer was no, saying this project is only for YVR.

It adds the airport is growing and it isn’t smart to only build to today’s capacity.

Pollard says it’ll take a few months to get an answer from the Environmental Assessment Office (EAO).

“There’s consultation going on with the technical working group and these are the municipalities and First Nations and various agencies that were involved in the original assessment. So, there’s a time period there for them to respond through the EAO, and we’re actually conducting a bit of a public consultation as well… that’ll be conducted in a couple of locations… to gather feedback from people. So, we’re hoping that the process will wrap up in late summer, or probably early fall.”

The public information sessions are set for May 14th and May 25th.