Woodfibre LNG near Squamish wants second floating hotel
Woodfibre LNG near Squamish wants to moor another floating hotel at the project site to house hundreds of workers needed to speed-up construction.
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On Thursday, the Indonesian-controlled company said it had submitted an application to regulatory agencies asking permission to moor a 900-room ship alongside the existing MV Isabelle that houses 650 workers.
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Last year's approval of the MV Isabelle was controversial, with the City of Squamish at one point banning the accommodation plan before being overruled by B.C.'s Environmental Assessment Office.
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The Woodfibre LNG facility is being built on the old Woodfibre Pulp and Paper land on the western shore of Howe Sound about seven kilometres south of Squamish and is only accessible by water. It is expected to process 2.1 million tonnes of LNG a year for export and is forecast to open in 2027.
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Company CEO Luke Schauerte said approval of the second floating hotel would allow 'more employment opportunities sooner and accelerate construction of the world's first net-zero LNG export facility.'
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The project was approved in 2015 with workers expected to live in and around Squamish. But as the rental vacancy rate dropped in Squamish, the floating hotel idea was suggested in order to reduce the impact on the community.
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The first floating hotel was permitted through an amendment to the project's environmental assessment certificate, but is the subject of a legal challenge from a local residents group that claims the permitting process was flawed.
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Tracey Saxby, spokesperson for My Sea to Sky, said this claim will be heard in Federal Court starting May 28, 2025.
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She said her group would also protest the application for a second floating hotel.
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'I can't imagine that Woodfibre LNG could be permitted to dock a second floatel while the first floatel blatantly ignores local jurisdiction, and is being challenged later this month in Federal Court as having followed an improper permitting process,' Saxby said.
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'The impact of this project keeps getting bigger. It's clear that Woodfibre LNG grossly underestimated the need for worker accommodation in their original proposal. Both the company and its regulators failed to listen to warnings from community members made over a decade ago that accommodation was scarce.'
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Schauerte said that if approved, the company would contract Vancouver-based Bridgemans Service Group that retrofitted a cruise ship into the MV Isabelle.
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