Metro Vancouver’s proposed transit plan would mean more jobs, a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions and a better quality of life, according to a report released this week.

The study, conducted for the labour and environmental alliances Green Jobs B.C. and Blue Green Canada, found that approval of the Mayors’ Transportation and Transit Plan would bring major benefits to the Lower Mainland.

“The Mayors’ Council plan, if adopted, will create family-sustaining green jobs, reduce travel times, ease congestion and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This plan will transform the way people get around,” said Lisa Matthaus, co-chair of Green Jobs B.C.

Voting is now underway in a referendum on a proposed 0.5 per cent Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax. If approved, the estimated annual revenue of $250-million would be used to partially fund an $8-billion, 10 year transit plan.

Among projects included in the plan are more rapid bus routes, increased SkyTrain, Canada Line, SeaBus and West Coast Express services, a new, four-lane Pattullo Bridge, rapid transit along Broadway, two new Light Rail Transit lines connecting Surrey City Centre to Guildford, Newton and Langley  and extensions of cycling and pedestrian walkway networks.

The study, written by public policy researcher and former deputy minister of transportation Blair Redlin and economist David Fairey, found that, over a decade, the plan would result in 43,800 person years in new employment, $2.96 billion in wages and $4.48 billion in GDP, while reducing projected greenhouse gas emissions by 8.2 per cent.

“Transit occupies a sweet spot for creating green jobs that reduce our environmental footprint. They are a classic green jobs generator,” says the report.

“The devastating impacts of global climate change are clearer by the day. Dependence on fossil fuels must be reduced. And we can do it by creating good green jobs that also help build a just and prosperous economy for everyone.”

Currently, more than 6,000 people in Metro Vancouver work in mass transit and the report predicts that the plan will not only create 3,600 more direct jobs in construction, operation and maintenance of vehicles, it will also make it easier for people to get to work, putting 60,000 more jobs within reach.

Investing in transit creates 10 times more jobs than investing in fossil fuel extraction, said Charley Beresford, Blue Green Canada chair.

“In the oil and gas patch in 2014, which you could argue was the peak, there were 6,200 direct B.C jobs. That’s roughly equivalent to the jobs that already exist in transit and with the Mayors’ Plan there would be a 60 per cent uptick. That gives an idea of the impact for B.C,” Beresford said.

“We’re past the argument about economy versus environment. The world is getting serious about building a green, inclusive economy and this plan is in step with that process.”

The report found that road congestion in Metro Vancouver costs $487-million a year and reduces business revenue by $591.8-million. As the population grows, the costs would almost double by 2045, but, by implementing the Mayors’ Council plan, those costs could be reduced by up to 41 per cent.

“We’ll save more than $1-billion in traffic congestion costs. The distances people drive and the costs of excess emissions will all be reduced by about one-third,” says the report.

Transportation is the top source of greenhouse gas emissions in B.C and, in order to meet the goal of reducing greenhouse gases to 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020, the province is aiming to double transit ridership by 2020.

The study finds that, currently, emissions are forecast to increase to more than 5.1-million tonnes a year by 2030, but, with the Mayors’ Council plan, they will rise to 4.7-million tones – an 8.2 per cent improvement.

The plan has met with opposition from groups such as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which argues that many residents cannot afford the tax and that TransLink is a wasteful organization. When it was revealed that former CEO Ian Jarvis will be paid almost half a million dollars a year until his contract expires next year, those campaigning for a no vote gained traction.

Governance problems do need to be addressed, but voters should look at the advantages offered by the plan, Beresford said.

“These are the jobs of our future. We need this infrastructure to get around and we need it for our quality of life.”

The Mayors’ Council Transit Plan: Good Jobs Clean Skies by Langley Teachers' Association

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Today Vivian Krause published an opinion piece in The Province claiming “a vote for Vision is a vote for U.S. oil interests.” So, you might be wondering: just who is Vivian Krause? We’re so glad you asked…

An essential component of all public relations campaigns is having the right messenger— a credible, impassioned champion of your cause.

While many PR pushes fail to get off the ground, those that really catch on — the ones that gain political attention and result in debates and senate inquiries — almost always have precisely the right poster child.

And in the federal government and oil industry’s plight to discredit environmental groups, the perfect poster child just so happens to be Vivian Krause.

Krause describes herself as an “independent” researcher and a single mom asking “fair questions” about American funding of Canadian environmental groups. She blogged for many years in relative obscurity before becoming the federal Conservatives’ favourite attack dog.

Krause’s moment in the sun came in January 2012 when Joe Oliver, Canada’s then Natural Resources Minister, released his infamous letter decrying “foreign-funded radical” environmentalists for “hijacking” the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline review process.

Krause had primed the pump for the Conservatives to swoop in and achieve their goal — to discredit environmental groups by building a public narrative about them acting nefariously, thereby justifying spending millions of dollars on audits of charities’ political activities.

Never mind that philanthropic dollars cross international borders all the time. Never mind that the Northern Gateway proposal is sponsored by China’s state-owned oil company Sinopec, along with many other foreign oil companies. Never mind that there’s probably no more legitimate participation in a democracy than citizens signing up to speak at public hearings.

No, once you have a vendetta, inconvenient facts don’t matter. And Krause’s vendetta against environmental groups has been in the works for a long time — ever since she worked in public relations for the farmed salmon industry.

The Salmon Farming Industry and the Birth of a Vendetta

It was due to her interest in promoting salmon farming that Krause started rifling through the tax returns of large American foundations supporting wild salmon advocacy in Canada.

It didn’t take long for Vivian Krause to cook up a conspiracy theory involving American foundations working to undermine Canadian interests — and then to expand that theory to any number of conservation issues in Canada, with a special focus on conservation campaigns that were inconvenient for the oil industry.

To Krause, it seemed suspicious that foundations from across the border were giving money to Canadian groups working on Canadian conservation and energy issues. It must be, Krause surmised, that these big foundations are spending their dollars to manipulate Canadian energy and environment politics to further American interests. And, she went further to suggest, these Canadian groups are acting as pawns of these suspicious foundations.

Speaking of suspicious, by early 2013, Krause had admitted that more than 90 per cent of her income for 2012 had come from oil, gas and mining interests. Groups paying Krause speaker’s fees included the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Association for Mineral Exploration and the Vancouver Board of Trade.

Vivian Krause's Convenient Aversion to Climate Change Facts

Fast forward to this week when Krause couldn’t resist weighing into the Vancouver election campaign, claiming that: “For Canada, there is no single economic issue that is more important than getting Alberta oil to global markets.”

While oil is no doubt an important part of the Canadian economy, Krause’s statement overlooks two inconvenient facts:

1) According to Statistics Canada, the oilsands account for only two per cent of the national GDP.

2) A study by Simon Fraser University and The Goodman Group Ltd released this week finds Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain jobs promises are overblown and recommends the proposed expansion be rejected as it is neither in the economic nor public interest of B.C. and Metro Vancouver.

The argument that continued oilsands expansion is a positive for the Canadian economy — and more to the point, the Metro Vancouver economy — is far from a slam dunk.

While Krause enjoys spinning another of her clandestine tales in linking Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson to U.S. foundations, it’s increasingly clear that it’s all a convenient cover story for her to push her own view that the fossil fuel industry should be allowed to expand.

“Voting for Gregor Robertson means voting to support a U.S.-funded, anti-pipeline campaign that continues the U.S. monopoly on Canadian oil, keeping Canada over a barrel,” Krause writes. “When you go to the poll, don’t vote for Gregor Robertson. Vote for Canada.”

Perhaps Krause missed the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which states that governments need to peak emissions, rapidly phase out fossil fuels and transition to 100 per cent renewable energy pronto? Rapidly expanding the oilsands and building new pipelines to serve that expansion doesn’t actually fit into any plans to have an inhabitable earth — not to mention the terrifying consequences an oil spill could reap on Vancouver.

If Krause’s modus operandi is climate change denial, it would be nice if she just stated that right up front, instead of conveniently ignoring it.

(If you want to know where we’re coming from at DeSmog Canada, mosey on over to our About Us page, where you can find out. Hint: we agree with 97 per cent of scientists about climate change, we’re proud to accept donations from anyone who supports our mission and we’re not going to tell you how to vote because that’s not our thing.)

In a recent op-ed in the Calgary Herald, Barry Cooper, a University of Calgary professor and known climate skeptic called on Alberta Premier Jim Prentice to use Krause as an attack dog against environmental groups.

“[Prentice] knows from his work with Enbridge and B.C. First Nations that the real source of opposition to Northern Gateway are the enviros and the deep-pocketed American foundations that fund them,” Cooper wrote. “So, Jim, hire Vivian Krause, who has done a lot of work on this problem, and use the government megaphone to publicize her analyses of the pernicious sources of enviro funding.”

Which raises the question: did someone hire Krause to weigh in — clumsy as it may be — on the Vancouver election?

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Kinder Morgan has significantly overstated the benefits of its controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposal while vastly understating risks associated with increasing the flow of oil to Metro Vancouver.

That’s the conclusion of a new economic analysis by Simon Fraser University and The Goodman Group Ltd. which also recommended that the proposed expansion be rejected as it is neither in the economic nor public interest of B.C. and Metro Vancouver.

“The jobs created are nowhere near the number claimed by Kinder Morgan and the costs are grossly underestimated when the risks of a major spill, particularly one occurring in the Vancouver area, are factored in,” said Doug McArthur, director of SFU’s Graduate School of Public Policy, which co-authored the report.

“The whole project is highly questionable from a public policy point of view,” McArthur added.

The report — Economic Costs and Benefits of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMX) for BC and Metro Vancouver — said Kinder Morgan maintains building the $5.4 billion expansion project would create 36,000 person-years of short-term employment in B.C.

The analysis, however, shows it would only create 12,000 person-years, or less, of employment.

“We correctly anticipated that the benefits from the pipeline would be small in the context of the overall B.C. economy and mostly short-term,” said Ian Goodman, president of The Goodman Group Ltd. and co-author of the report.

“But we were very surprised that the company has exaggerated the short-term jobs associated with building the pipeline by a factor of three,” Goodman said.

In terms of permanent jobs, the report notes Kinder Morgan says operating the expansion project would create only 50 direct full-time jobs in the province but a wide range of spin-offs could push the total up to almost 2,000 jobs.

“Once again, these claims are exaggerated: even with a wide range of spin-offs [the Trans Mountain expansion] will only create 800 long-term jobs,” the 70-page report, released Monday, said.

It also said that, on the cost side, Kinder Morgan’s miscalculations are even more dramatic with estimations of a worst-case scenario for spill damage in a non-urban, non-sensitive area costing only $100 million to $300 (CDN) million.

The analysis found, however, potential costs for a major rupture in a sensitive but non-urban setting could start at $1 billion (USD). Under a worst-case scenario involving a catastrophic rupture in an urban setting, costs could escalate to as much as $2 billion to $5 billion (USD).

The ruptured Enbridge Line 6B that sent more than three million litres of diluted bitumen into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan came with a clean up cost of more than $1 billion after more than three years of remediation work.

Brigid Rowan, senior energy economist at The Goodman Group Ltd., said Kinder Morgan has vastly underestimated the worst-case costs for a catastrophic pipeline rupture.

“Contrary to [Kinder Morgan’s] findings, damage and cleanup costs for major accidents are highly correlated with population density,” Rowan said.

“So a worst-case scenario for [the Trans Mountain expansion] would involve a major accident in a more densely populated area (such as Metro Vancouver) damaging and disrupting key infrastructure, and possibly resulting in a spill to water and losses of human life,” he said.

Costs for that type of catastrophe could escalate to the multi-billion dollar range — more than 10 times higher than the Kinder Morgan estimates, Rowan added.

The existing Trans Mountain pipeline already ruptured in a suburban area in Burnaby in 2007 sending 250,000 litres of crude into the community and 70,000 litres into the Burrard Inlet. Over 250 residents were evacuated and more than $15 million spent on clean up.

The report also outlined a major profit disparity between the province and producers when it comes to the pipeline’s financial benefits. B.C. would receive less than 2 per cent of the increased revenues paid to tar sands producers who will retain 68 per cent of the new revenues.

“The lion’s share of the benefits flows to [Kinder Morgan and Trans Mountain], the Alberta tar sands producers and Alberta, whereas the citizens of B.C., and Metro Vancouver in particular, will bear the lion’s share of the risks and receive very small benefits,” the report said.

The Trans Mountain expansion project proposal, which is hotly contested by local residents and municipal politicians, would increase the capacity of oil flowing from Alberta to Metro Vancouver to 890,000 barrels per day from the current 300,000.

The proposed expansion is currently under a controversial review by the National Energy Board.

Image Credit: Kinder Morgan oil facilities in the Burrard Inlet. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

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Nothing is better than splashing around in the water on a hot summer day, but B.C. residents should be questioning whether that refreshing dip is going to make them sick, says Lauren Hornor, executive director of Fraser Riverkeeper, a non-profit organization working to ensure B.C. waters are safe for swimming, drinking and fishing.

This week, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority issued a “no swimming” advisory for three West Vancouver beaches due to high levels of E.coli, which can increase risk of gastro-intestinal illness.

“Due to high levels of bacteria in the water swimming is not recommended at Ambleside, Dundarave and Sandy Cove beaches,” the health authority said.

While some B.C. health authorities immediately post fecal coliform bacteria levels online after receiving test results for beaches, others either do not receive regular information or do not make those figures public unless levels are dangerously high, Hornor said.

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That means people do not know pollution levels at some of the region’s most popular beaches, including White Rock, Cultus Lake, Crescent Beach, Alice Lake Park Beach in Squamish and Camp Jubilee on Indian Arm, Hornor said.

“Those are the top five beaches that are very well used, but not tested or the information is not publicly available,” she said.

Test results often not made public

The main offenders, according to Fraser Riverkeeper, are Fraser Health Authority, which receives test results from Metro Vancouver, but does not make results publicly available online, and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, which meticulously reports on Vancouver beaches, but has not yet posted any water quality data for Garibaldi, Squamish or the Sunshine Coast.

Interior Health Authority and Vancouver Island Health Authority post only safe or unsafe notifications, instead of coliform bacteria counts, and Fraser Riverkeeper is working to obtain more specific numbers.

All available results are included in Swim Guide, a free app developed by Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, which gives information and pollution counts for beaches across Canada, the U.S. and, this year, parts of Mexico.

Swim Guide marks beaches with red, yellow or green indicators, but beaches falling under Fraser Valley Health or in the Garibaldi/Sunshine Coast areas have grey markers showing no water quality information is available.

Lack of information means health risks, said Hornor, who has two young children and worries about their beach safety.

E.coli and sewage make people sick

Fraser Riverkeeper is part of Mountain Equipment Co-op's Homewaters campaign this summer and is encouraging British Columbians to call on local health authorities to provide reliable, consistent water quality information.

“When there’s E.coli and sewage or feces, whether from humans or animals, it causes all sorts of problems,” Hornor said said.

Effects can range from inflamed eyes and itchy skin to serious gastro-intestinal illness, with children and seniors most susceptible to infection. Harmful pathogens can enter the body through cuts or openings such as the mouth, ears and nose, meaning that even splashing around at the edge of the water can be a problem.

Hornor, an environmental lawyer, said two years of letters and phone calls to Fraser Health Authority have not produced an adequate response and frustrated members of Fraser Riverkeeper are preparing to submit a freedom-of-information request.

However, Gordon Stewart, the health authority’s health protection manager, said changes are on the way and numbers should be posted by late summer.

“We want to get it cracked this year. We are doing minor tweaks to the website,” he said. “We are making sure that, when we post stuff, it’s accurate and people are not confused by it.”

Beach testing is done by Metro Vancouver, which supplies results to the health authorities, and, if a beach is unsafe, warning signs are immediately posted, Stewart said.

In those cases, beaches are not closed for swimming, unless there is an event such as an oil spill, but swimmers are advised they have increased risks of gastro-intestinal illness.

Technical problems prevent test results from being posted

Vancouver Coastal Health Authority told Fraser Riverkeeper that most beaches in the Garibaldi and Sunshine Coast areas have “good to excellent historic water quality” and, with lower population levels, risks are smaller, but there are plans for more testing to ensure water quality has not deteriorated.

Vancouver Coastal spokeswoman Anna Marie D’Angelo said in an e-mailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada that Coast Garibaldi sampling is done by provincial parks staff or private camp operators who submit samples to the provincial laboratory.

Usually results would be posted on the website, but there have been some hitches, D’Angelo said.

“Unfortunately, the website is not capturing 2014 data as we’re experiencing some problems with the provincial lab and our web host in getting the 2014 results posted,” she said. “We’re working on resolving this. We are still receiving the results, they are just not making it to the website.”

What level of risk is acceptable?

In addition to obtaining information about pollution levels, swimmers then need to decide what level of fecal coliform bacteria they consider acceptable.

Health Canada and B.C. consider anything above 200 coliform units in 100 millilitres of water to be unsafe, but Fraser Riverkeeper follows the Ontario guideline in deeming more than 100 coliform units per 100 millilitres of water to be unacceptable.

Health Canada estimates that, using its guidelines, one or two per cent of swimmers will become ill from contamination. That means about 100,000 Canadians a year get sick from swimming in polluted waters.

A yuck factor that may make swimmers think twice about a relaxing dip in the water is that Metro Vancouver discharges more than 30 billion litres of untreated waste water annually into the Fraser River and Strait of Georgia from old combined sewage outfall pipes. When it rains heavily, sewage often bypasses treatment and heads straight into the river or ocean.

Vancouver, New Westminster and Burnaby are in the process of separating storm drains and sanitary sewers to prevent raw sewage spilling into the river and ocean during heavy rainfalls, but it will be about 30 years before work is completed.

However, some swimmers will not be deterred, said Hornor, noting that there are die-hards who insist in swimming in False Creek, despite warnings that even boaters should avoid prolonged skin contact with the water.

This story was made possible through support from Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of its Homewaters campaign, which is dedicated to preserving Canada’s fresh water from coast to coast.

Photo: Carlos Mejia Greene via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.