Chemtrade Chlorine Plant – Assessing the Risks

Chemtrade Chlorine Plant – Assessing the Risks

On June 6, 2024, Chemtrade held two meetings with the public to discuss their desire to extend the lease that lets them manufacture liquid chlorine at their facility at 100 Amherst Ave. The presentation touched on the history and safety record at the plant, along with other key points, including:

• Liquid chlorine is used extensively to purify drinking water, including here in Metro Vancouver. There are no other technologies that work at scale for large water systems. Ozone and UV light work for small systems, but their effects don’t last as the water gets distributed through a large network of pipes in a city.
• They cannot simply move the plant. It needs extensive salt (brought in by ship) as the raw material for the product they produce. Moving the location would cost far too much to be practical.
• There are limited plants producing chlorine in the western half of Canada and the USA. If this plant shuts down, there may be supply issues getting chlorine to purify drinking water in our area and elsewhere in western Canada and parts of the USA as well.
• The other large-scale plants that produce liquid chlorine are on the US Gulf Coast, which would mean that chlorine purchased from them would have to be shipped by rail to our area.
• But some of those plants in the USA are using an older technology that is being phased out by 2028. It is not known that all of those plants will upgrade to the legally required, safer systems because the cost of such upgrades is high. If some of those plants close, chlorine supply will be reduced. (Note that the Chemtrade plant made the upgrade years ago.)
• In addition, the US EPA is requiring US-based chlorine producers to sell to US cities preferentially, which could further limit chlorine availability in the event this plant shuts down.
• Chemtrade says they have invested extensively in improving the safety of the plant by reducing the chlorine stored on site extensively – by 94%. Currently the chlorine they produce is collected in rail cars and shipped off daily.
• They have plans to further improve plant safety and reduce the impact of a chlorine spill. Those changes will go forward if they get a lease extension.

It is important to note that the presentation was by the management and employees of the Chemtrade company and did not include anything from those with different points of view.

To that end, consider the fact that chlorine is a highly toxic liquid that boils at -34℃. As a result, it becomes a gas very quickly in the event of a spill, and that gas is heavier than air, so it sinks and spreads along the ground. It is extremely chemically reactive and a strong oxidizing agent. A large spill – from a rail tank car, for example – can require evacuating a very large area depending on the time of day, wind direction, and other factors.

The following map comes from the 2024 Emergency Response Guide app (freely available for both Android and iOS devices), which is used by first responders when dealing with hazardous materials in an emergency. This is a worst-case scenario, showing a large spill coming from a rail car at the Chemtrade facility at night, with low wind speeds. The orange cone defines the area in which first responders might need to perform protective actions. Those might include telling people to shelter in place or evacuate, depending on conditions.

For comparison, here’s a small spill in the daytime with a different wind direction. The map is zoomed in substantially to make the affected area more obvious.

As you can see, the area impacted by a chlorine spill is quite variable.

While a large spill like the one shown above is highly unlikely, all of Metro Vancouver is subject to earthquake risk, and that could potentially cause such an event.

At the current time there is no data available about soil liquefaction during an earthquake at the Chemtrade site, but the Metro Vancouver Seismic Microzonation project will discuss “the potential for seismic-induced landslide and liquefaction hazard potential” later in 2024. (Quote from the Metro Vancouver Regional Multi-Hazard Mapping Final Report, February 8, 2024, page 20. Available on request from Metro Vancouver.) That data may help better establish the earthquake risks faced by the Chemtrade facility and how those risks impact surrounding businesses and residences, including Blueridge.

In conclusion, the question of whether or not to extend the lease for the production of chlorine at the existing Chemtrade facility is complicated.

While a serious accident at the facility is unlikely, it is theoretically possible. Chemtrade’s risk assessment says such things are very rare and their impact is limited, but generally available data for first responders shows the impacts could potentially be quite large in some cases. There are numerous schools and other facilities near the Chemtrade facility that could be affected in the event of a spill or fire.

But the loss of chlorine production comes with its own risks, particularly to public health, if municipalities cannot get chlorine to purify their drinking water.

Balancing those risks is not straightforward, and at the moment, there is no clear answer. Additional discussion and a more in-depth assessment of earthquake risk might help resolve the issue.

Those wishing to learn more from Chemtrade can visit their website dedicated to this issue at askchemtrade.ca. At their meetings, they offered tours to members of the public wanting to see the plant and learn more about it, and it may still be possible to request such a tour via that website.

Chemtrade’s current lease is valid until 2030. The entities making the decision about renewing that lease are the Port of Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver. We’re informed that the District is reviewing the issue and looking for public input at this time.

If you’d like to make a comment to the District, you can send an email to the Mayor and Council, or you can attend a meeting and ask to speak on the topic for up to three minutes.

The Port of Vancouver has a Contact Us page on their website.