First-ever Canadian study begins to evaluate health impacts of flaring from Woodfibre LNG

The first-ever Canadian study to evaluate health impacts of flaring from proposed Woodfibre LNG facility will gets underway this month. The federal government’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) co-funded the study.

The research project is a collaboration between the University of Victoria (UVic), Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), Simon Fraser University (SFU), University of Toronto, Texas A&M University, and the non-profit My Sea to Sky.

In a press releases, the researchers said air quality and associated potential health impacts on frontline communities living close to flaring from Woodfibre LNG will be determined using data that is different from the assumptions from the proponent. Flaring is burning off excess hydrocarbons that accrue during LNG production or upset events.

This is the first study to be done on a proposed LNG export facility near a population centre in Canada that will translate various possible flaring exposure scenarios into health impacts, expressed in the number of premature deaths, mortality from long-term exposure, asthma symptom days, and estimates of the societal costs of avoiding adverse health effects.

Slated to begin in March 2024, this project comes on the heels of the Biden administration in the U.S. announcing last month it has paused approvals on newly proposed LNG terminals to “guard against risks to the health of our communities, especially frontline communities in the United States who disproportionately shoulder the burden of pollution from new export facilities.”

“This study will enable Canadians to make more informed decisions about new LNG facilities in Canada, especially in B.C., where there are six proposed LNG projects,” said Dr. Laura Minet, who leads UVic’s Clean Air Lab. “Several epidemiological studies have shown an association between flaring and negative health effects on local populations. Unfortunately, the nature of those retrospective studies means that it is already too late to protect the affected communities. This will be a model to apply to other LNG export facilities to fully understand the potential health impacts related to flaring that are currently unquantified – and in a Canadian context.”

Vancouver Coastal Health Medical Health Officer, Dr. Michael Schwant, said the potential health impact of natural gas flaring activities are of great interest from a public health standpoint. T

his study will run various computer modelling scenarios, from a realistic best to worst case, of how much flaring could happen at the USD 5.1-billion Woodfibre LNG facility, drawing upon data collected from other similar LNG export facilities to estimate the potential health impacts of air pollution exposure from Woodfibre LNG on the local population, using Health Canada’s Air Quality Benefits Assessment Tool (AQBAT).

Using satellite data from existing LNG export facilities around the world, the study will determine how much the proposed Woodfibre LNG facility could potentially flare, providing an up-to-date and independent data set that can be compared to the proponent’s assertions made in 2014.

“This new data will be an invaluable contribution to the current context where scientists recently found that measurements used by industry in Alberta’s tar sands are under-reporting air pollution emissions by 1,900 percent to over 6,300 percent,” said Tim Takaro, CAPE BC member and expert on toxicology and public health.   “If flaring is also underestimated, it would mean that the air quality and associated health impacts of those facilities are also underestimated.”