As construction of the Woodfibre LNG project gets underway in Squamish, B.C., locals are worried about potential air pollution and health impacts from flaring — the process of burning off excess gas, mostly in the form of methane.
Woodfibre has estimated flaring will occur during about three per cent of the plant’s operations, or on about 11 days per year. Tracy Saxby, co-founder of the local environmental group My Sea to Sky, says that’s too many.
“That exceeds the definition of a high amount of flaring, based on this new research that shows that being exposed to flaring at fossil fuel facilities for more than 10 days a year can have significant impacts for human health,” Saxby told The Narwhal. She said chronic exposure to flaring can increase rates of asthma, heart disease, lung disease, premature death and mortality.
After hearing Squamish-area residents’ Woodfibre-related worries, University of Victoria researcher Laura Minet decided to launch the first Canadian study on the potential health impacts of flaring from the Woodfibre liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility.
Minet agreed studies indicate oil and gas development can impact the health of local communities, but said it’s difficult to draw comparisons with LNG export facilities “because it’s [a] different context.”
“I think it’s all a question of magnitude and how much flaring is happening,” she said. “What we can for sure say is … there are very high chances that it’s going to have impacts on the health of the community.”
But according to Minet, an assistant professor in civil engineering, her attempts to get modelling data for Woodfibre flaring have hit a wall.
In October 2023, Minet filed a freedom of information request with the B.C. Ministry of Environment and the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, hoping to get access to details about how Woodfibre LNG modelled the potential impacts of any flaring for its environmental assessment.
Two significant concerns are Woodfibre’s proximity to residential areas in Squamish, with a population of 24,000, and local geography. Howe Sound, the world’s most southerly fjord, is a long, narrow ocean inlet. Its steep sides, formed by glaciers, make the inlet susceptible to inversions, where a layer of warm air traps cooler air in the space below.
“That means that if there’s excess air pollution, air pollution could be also trapped close to the ground under certain meteorological conditions,” such as during heat waves, Minet, who heads the university’s clean air lab, said in an interview.
Minet requested a copy of emission dispersion modelling files referenced in a 2015 memo from Golder Associates, the consulting firm that compiled Woodfibre’s environmental impact assessment submissions. In the memo, a Golder employee promises to provide the files to the Ministry of Environment on an external hard drive.
“The response I got from them was that they couldn’t find a hard drive and they couldn’t actually find any proof that they had received it from Golder Associates,” Minet said.
The Narwhal also filed a freedom of information request seeking the modelling files referenced in the Golder memo. In response, the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office said the files were publicly posted on its website. But after reviewing the data cited by the office, Minet disagreed.
“These memos are responses to [questions] asked by the Ministry of Environment on the modelling done by Golder Associates, and provide some information on the modelling assumptions, but they are not modelling files.”
Woodfibre LNG is majority owned by Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto’s Pacific Energy Corporation. The gas export project is under construction on the site of an old pulp and paper mill on the shore of Howe Sound. It’s one of three approved LNG projects in B.C. including the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, B.C., which will be Canada’s first LNG facility to ship compressed gas overseas. Four other LNG projects are proposed in the province.
In an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal, Woodfibre spokesperson Sean Beardow did not directly answer a question about the amount of flaring that will take place. “There will be flaring associated with initial start up and we’re exploring different avenues on how to reduce it as much as possible,” he said.
Woodfibre aims to minimize flaring by redirecting gas that evaporates from LNG storage tanks to the liquefaction facility instead of flaring it, according to Beardow. He said Woodfibre LNG — unlike the larger LNG Canada project — will use electric compressors, which can help reduce flaring because they require maintenance less frequently than gas-powered compressors and don’t need to flare gas when restarting after maintenance.
When Woodfibre LNG plans to flare gas, it is required to notify the District of Squamish, Squamish Nation, Musqueam Indian Band and Tsleil-Waututh Nation at least 24 hours in advance, Beardow said. In the event of unplanned flaring, the company is required to advise local governments within 24 hours of the start of flaring if the quantity of gas exceeds a specific volume — 10,000 cubic metres per event — or flaring occurs for more than four hours in a row.
Beardow did not directly answer a question about the impact flaring may have on air quality and human health, saying only that B.C. has “a world-class regulatory framework that protects both the environment and human health alike.”
“Woodfibre LNG trusts in the province’s regulatory system and will operate within its established limits in all aspects of its operations, including flaring,” Beardow added in an email.
Environmental assessments often rely on vague and optimistic flaring estimates provided by project proponents: Minet
The missing modelling files aren’t the only data issues observed by Minet and her team. Tim Takaro, a professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences who is involved in the Woodfibre LNG study, said there are “many, many problems” with flaring estimates for the project.
“One of the big obvious ones is that the largest release period is during the startup — generally one to two years, sometimes longer — and during maintenance. But in the environmental assessment, they leave out that they start their calculations during the running phase where the emissions are the lowest.”
The Narwhal asked the B.C. environment ministry if flaring during the plant’s startup was included in Woodfibre’s environmental assessment, but did not receive a direct answer. Instead, the ministry cited a supplemental report that states “flaring will occur under controlled conditions during introduction of hydrocarbons” while the plant is starting up and systems are tested. Woodfibre anticipates flaring will occur less than three per cent of the time, the report says.
Woodfibre also estimates the project’s start-up and system testing will last one month and involve “intermittent flaring periods lasting up to three or four days at any one time,” according to the supplemental report.
In Kitimat, residents have been advised the LNG Canada gas liquefaction facility could be flaring continuously for up to three months as the facility tests equipment in preparation to launch its first shipments to Asia next year.
Minet said potential human health impacts of flaring haven’t been extensively researched, partly due to the relatively small number of LNG export facilities — which cool and compress natural gas for easier transport — around the world. Currently, about 40 plants are operating worldwide and about half of them have opened in the past 15 years.
The Woodfibre study, which involves a team of scientists from University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University, University of Toronto and Texas A&M University, as well as officials from Vancouver Coastal Health and the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, will add to a growing body of research about the burgeoning industry.
“My hope is to be able to provide information on what is happening around the world at LNG export facilities,” Minet said. “This information could be a good basis for future environmental impact assessments. We can rely partly on what the proponents are saying and how much flaring is going to occur in those facilities, but it’s good to compare this with what has been observed at other facilities and also build worst-case scenarios.”
Most environmental impact assessment documents compiled by LNG proponents are “based on best case scenarios,” according to Minet.
“They never model a case when they’re going to have to flare a lot because there are maintenance issues or because the facility has to close for a certain period of time,” she said, adding estimates about flaring frequency are often quite vague.
“Looking at environmental impact assessments from other LNG export facilities around the world, the information that’s communicated to the public is always very generic — ‘We’re expecting to flare a bit, but not too much’ — and we have no idea what this is based on.”
“There’s been a lot of flaring happening at some energy export facilities in the U.S. and notably in Australia — and some reports of journalists saying that the communities around them have been affected and have reported potential health issues associated with this excess flaring,” Minet said.
Government agencies, including B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, use estimates provided by project proponents when deciding whether to approve projects like Woodfibre LNG.
In the U.S., Saxby pointed out, some liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities have underestimated the frequency and duration of flaring. “Those frontline communities disproportionately shoulder the burden of pollution and there are significant health risks.”
She said if flaring is underestimated, “it means that the local air quality impacts and the associated health impacts are also being underestimated — and that’s a really big problem.”
B.C. government can’t locate files mentioned in Woodfibre LNG environmental assessment
The Narwhal’s freedom of information request for the emissions modelling files was closed by the government, which said there were “no records.” Minet is still waiting for her request to be fulfilled.
“They said, ‘We have other files that we can provide you, other documents,’ which I assume would be the emails between Golder and the [ministry] just to understand the assumptions. But we’re a year later, and I haven’t received them yet.”
The environment ministry has not responded to questions The Narwhal emailed in August, asking if the hard drive and modelling files have been located and if any efforts have been made to obtain them.
When The Narwhal asked Woodfibre about the files, Beardow directed us to the assessment office website.
Saxby is deeply concerned that Woodfibre LNG may have received its environmental assessment certificate without providing the data on which its estimates about flaring and potential health impacts are based.
“From our perspective, that completely invalidates Woodfibre LNG’s environmental assessment certificate,” she said. “There’s a lot of concerns about this project and the fact that it hasn’t been properly assessed … Everybody that lives in the community and in Howe Sound are being put at risk. Our health is being put at risk.”
Takaro shares Saxby’s concern that Woodfibre LNG’s environmental assessment certificate may have been issued despite a lack of modelling data about flaring from the project.
“How is it possible that a company … can operate in a space that protects them from scrutiny of people who know about the health effects of those emissions?”
Minet hopes study findings will help challenge environmental impact assessment standards
Without the modelling for Woodfibre’s flaring emissions, Minet and her colleagues have turned to other data sources to assess in the study.
“What we’re doing now is reviewing data that is publicly available on all LNG export facilities that are open around the world already, [and] that includes looking at satellite data,” she said.
Understanding how often other LNG plants are flaring and how local conditions, like weather and geography, influence the dispersal of those emissions will enable Minet’s team to assemble a range of projections for flaring at Woodfibre, from best-case to worst-case scenarios.
Once the study is published, Minet hopes it will be a resource for the other LNG projects making their way through the environmental assessment process. Those include the Ksi Lisims LNG project, which would be the province’s second-largest LNG export project if approved. The proposed projects could collectively produce 30 million tonnes of LNG per year on top of about 19 million tonnes per year from Woodfibre, LNG Canada and Cedar LNG.
“My hope is to question those environmental impact assessments … and see if we could better define them to include more worst-case scenarios, to have a better picture of what could happen to the community, rather than relying on best-case scenarios.”
Woodfibre LNG was approved by the B.C. government in 2015 and the Squamish Nation in 2018. The company expects to ship about 2.1 million tonnes of LNG overseas each year, starting in 2027.
This article was originally published by The Narwhal, an online magazine dedicated to covering the natural world in Canada. Sign up for their newsletter here.
