Saanich Inlet wrong place for LNG plant

The proposed LNG plant Steelhead wants to build at Bamberton would be the end of Saanich Inlet.

This company wants to bring gas by an undersea pipeline from Sumas through Boundary Pass and Satellite Channel to Bamberton. There the gas is to be cooled aboard a foreign-built floating plant, stored and then shipped by tanker to markets in Asia.

The huge power demands would be supplied by massive gas turbines with a round-the-clock roar akin to large aircraft. Vast amounts of sea water would be pumped through the plant to cool the gas and the heated water then returned to the inlet with some chlorine added to kill microorganisms that might foul the pumps.

Saanich Inlet is much-studied fjord, with a shallow sill only 50 metres deep at the north end and depths of more than 200 metres off Bamberton. The minimal circulation of the deep parts of this inlet makes recovery of the inlet very slow. Only now are the miraculous salmon runs of the Goldstream, Koksilah and Cowichan Rivers approaching their historic levels.

This area is home to ospreys, nesting eagles, herons and gulls. Thousands of migrating seabirds winter in Saanich Inlet and Bamberton is under the flyway of many other species of birds heading to the pastures and wetlands of the Saanich Peninsula as they wing their way south.

There are seals, sea lions, occasionally orcas, and last weekend a humpback whale was feeding right off the Bamberton site.

This inlet is the wrong place for Steelhead LNG. John Porter Willis Point