The five other projects, two in British Columbia and three in Washington State, include potential increases in vessel transits just within the Salish Sea that are not quantified (see also Salish Sea-Only Increases in Vessel Traffic below). Combined with the two LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) projects that include LNG bunker barge traffic, Tilbury Marine Jetty and Puget Sound Energy (PSE) LNG, there would be an additional 1,090 to 1,519 Salish Sea-only vessel transits each year (see also LNG Bunkering below). Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project will add 696 annual tug escort transits between the pipeline terminus in Burnaby and the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. These calculations don’t include the ten projects in Washington state, several of which will likely result in increased ocean-going vessel traffic.įurther, there are eight projects that include increases to both ocean-going and Salish Sea-only vessel traffic however, only three projects quantify their additional non-ocean-going vessel traffic. If all of the proposed, permitted, and recently constructed projects in British Columbia are developed, this would result in at least a 25% increase in large, ocean-going commercial vessel traffic, as compared with 2020 transits. Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project and the Port of Vancouver’s proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 account for 46% of the quantified projected increase in vessel traffic. 12 of the 22 projects would add at least 2,634 annual vessel transits to and from Salish Sea ports in British Columbia. The November 2021 Salish Sea Vessel Traffic Projections identifies 22 new or expanding terminal and refinery projects that have been proposed or permitted or were recently completed. Moving forward, the new, expansion, and/or redevelopment terminal and refinery projects will have a greater effect than the pandemic on long-term vessel traffic trends and associated increased vessel traffic. More recently, issues with the global supply chain and cargo congestion at ports have caused a striking increase in the number of container ships and bulk carriers at anchor, including in the Salish Sea.
Also, at the start of the pandemic, the decreased demand for refined oil products resulted in anchorage areas being used for floating storage of crude oil and refined products. The report, How much did the COVID-19 pandemic quiet the oceans? found that “reduced ship traffic between Asia and the ports of Vancouver and Seattle (on the order of a 20% reduction from the same period of 2019) lowered noise power levels in the deep water offshore of Vancouver Island by about a quarter and in the Strait of Georgia by nearly half.” The total number of large commercial ship transits in the Salish Sea, from ocean-going vessels, decreased 12% from 11,894 transits in 2019 to 10,480 transits in 2020. The initial effect of the pandemic was a decrease in large commercial vessel traffic. The November 2021 Salish Sea Vessel Traffic Projections must begin with the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected and continues to affect vessel traffic in the Salish Sea. Friends of the San Juans issued its first Salish Sea Vessel Traffic Projections in 2015 to provide the public and decision-makers with comprehensive information about projects throughout the Salish Sea that would increase large commercial ocean-going vessel traffic and associated cumulative impacts.
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