The reality is there is already a lot of refining capacity just south of the British Columbia coastline, and there hasn’t been a substantial spill in the Salish Sea from an Oil Tanker.
This from an Earth Science professor at Simon Fraser University, who says Vancouver only has 1 small refinery in Burnaby, but BP Cherry Point and other large refineries are just south of the border along that same coastline.
Shahin Dashtgaard says the last hope for those against the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is the court decision from a challenge heard in December from 4 First Nations.
The Supreme Court nixed the British Columbia government’s appeal earlier this month, so there is little else the province can do.
The expansion project would carry mostly diluted bitumen, which is a sticky, black crude oil diluted with liquid natural gas.
Dashtgaard explains that one of the biggest questions is what would happen to this bitumen if there were a spill into the seawater.
If it sinks, it would be much harder to clean up.

Burrard Inlet is a closed seaway and a huge part of Vancouver’s population lives around the Inlet.
But having said that, Dashtgaard says, the Westridge Terminal has been loading bitumen and other oil products there since 1956 without a spill.
“The probability is quite low, but it’s never zero.”