A move toward national park status is needed for Howe Sound immediately.
Howe Sound is a spiritual and recreational place for Vancouver, tourists and seaside communities of B.C. This area is under threat by what I have come to refer to as the Environmental Axis of Evil – armed with industrial weapons of mass destruction.
At the moment there are proposals for:
• An expansion of port facilities at Squamish by filling in huge areas of the Squamish Estuary for a roadway enabling expansion of the port’s yard as well as increased shipping through Howe Sound.
• A gravel mine at McNab Creek, which essentially removes a vast amount of that estuary, leaving behind a water-filled pit in 30 years, and threatening fish stocks.
• Woodfibre LNG export facility, a direct threat to the herring stocks of Howe Sound. And let’s not fool anyone – she is just coal with LNG makeup on being shipped through Howe Sound.
On March 6, 1973, after hearing from a delegation who had grave concerns about the development of a coal port in Squamish with ships passing through Howe Sound for loading, the mayor of Vancouver at the time, Art Phillips, and the city council unanimously passed a resolution stating that not only should the provincial government immediately halt all plans concerning the coal port developments but that Howe Sound area should be considered primarily a recreational area.
So here is the challenge I throw out there today: I dare a group to approach the Vancouver mayor and council to again renew a resolution condemning the reindustrialization of Howe Sound and again call for the Howe Sound area to be left for all time as primarily a tourism recreation area.
John Buchanan
Squamish
