Plans to build a fuel depot in downtown Masset will not be reviewed by B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO).
The fuel depot will be owned and operated by North Arm Transportation on the site of a derelict fish-packing plant along the shore of Masset Sound with truck access off Harrison Avenue.
The site is zoned for heavy industry and the Village of Masset approved a siting-and-use for the project in September.
That same month, a law firm hired by a group of Masset residents, the Concerned Citizens of Masset, asked B.C.’s environment minister to review the project under B.C. Environmental Assessment Act.
The planned fuel depot is too small to trigger such a review automatically, but the Concerned Citizens argued it should be reviewed anyway.
Because Masset is so small and remote, the Concerned Citizens argued that building a depot with up to 2 million litres of fuel on the downtown waterfront poses risks equal to the risks a much larger project would pose in a more populated, better resourced place.
B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act does allow some small projects to be assessed on that basis.
The Concerned Citizens said they don’t object to the fuel depot itself, only the downtown waterfront site. They said it should be built outside the downtown core.
Among their concerns are the threats posted by tsunami, storm surge and coastal erosion; lack of available spill-response; the difficulty of a spill cleanup in Masset Sound, which has currents up to eight knots; and the socioeconomic impact of building a fuel depot on a prime waterfront property that could be developed in a way that attracts new residents and economic development.
But after reviewing the Concerned Citizens’ application, Elenore Arend, the EAO’s chief executive assessment officer, decided an EAO assessment wasn’t needed in this case. The decision was published Feb. 26 on the EAO website but has not been previously reported.
Arend listed two key reasons for her decision.
First, she said, an assessment could harm reconciliation with the Haida Nation.
It could cause economic hardship for the Old Massett Village Council, which has a business relationship with North Arm and supports the project. The Council of the Haida Nation holds decision-making authority over its traditional lands, she noted, and has not objected to the project.
Second, Arend said such assessments are generally intended for much larger projects, and the Masset fuel depot is already well regulated by the Village of Masset siting-and-use permit, Transport Canada oil-handling regulations, and the environmental standards North Arm is required to meet as part of its Crown foreshore lease — a lease that is jointly reviewed by the Council of the Haida Nation and Ministry of Forests at the Haida Gwaii Solutions Table.
Arend noted that land-use planning for the area is mainly a Village of Masset responsibility. Taken together, Arend said the existing review processes “can fairly, effectively, and appropriately address the concerns raised by the Applicant.”
Matt Stradiotti, president of North Arm Transportation, told the EAO in November that the site of the former fish-packing plant is “the least environmentally impactful and only economically feasible location” for the project.
Stradiotti said the main purpose of the project is to eventually move North Arm’s fuel storage off the water and onto land.
For the last 14 years, North Arm has stored its fuel in a 1.2-million litre barge floating alongside the Masset municipal wharf. At the end of the wharf, North Arm also runs a fuelling station for fishing vessels.
The new fuel depot is expected to be built in three phases.
In phase one, North Arm will install 10 horizontal, double-walled diesel tanks on the new site with safety valves and liners for catching any oily water. They will be anchored to large cages full of rocks so they don’t float in case of flooding.
The base of the tanks will be 6.75 metres above sea level. That is higher than the 6-metre tsunami fooding level that a 2023 report recommended for emergency planning in Masset given that the village can expect about a metre of sea-level rise in the next 80 to 100 years.
In phase two of the fuel depot project, which will likely take or three years, North Arm plans install several more such tanks for other fuels. North Arm provides gasoline, jet fuel, and home-heating fuels across northern Haida Gwaii as well as supplying the BC Hydro diesel-generating station that powers the north-end electrical grid seven months a year.
Once phase two is done, Stradiotti said North Arm will be able to remove the fuel barge and fuelling station from the municipal wharf.
In the third and final phase of the project, North Arm plans to install a new fuelling station for fishing vessels at the end of the wharf once used by the Omega Packing Company, which the company plans to repair and extend as far into Masset Sound as the municipal wharf goes now.
Stradiotti said North Arm spent a lot of time and money looking for alternative sites, but all of them were too costly to develop.
Stradiotti noted that the Harrison Avenue site is zoned for heavy industry and was home to a fish-packing plant for over 60 years. Before North Arm bought the property in November 2022, he said, the derelict plant posed a risk to Masset because it still had refrigerant and other harmful chemicals inside — materials that have now been removed.