Dear Editor:
The explosion in Beirut should be a wake up call about the risk of storing hazardous materials in the heart of an urban population.
When the Trans Mountain pipeline is complete the Burnaby tank farm will store the equivalent of 7,000 rail tank cars of toxic and highly flammable products in the centre of the Lower Mainland. This is over 100 times the amount of hazardous product that burned in the Lac Magentic disaster.
It is hard to believe that taxpayers will be paying for a project with such potential for large scale disaster and while so many Canadians are in need of financial assistance due to COVID-19. The estimated cost of pipeline has almost doubled and oil prices today are about half of what the National Energy Board report forecast for 2020.
The financial viability of the TMX and the risks of the Burnaby tank farm need to be urgently re-assessed.
Doug Taylor
North Vancouver
