Posted on February 25, 2026
By Stefan Labbe
The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority has applied to dredge Burrard Inlet in a move that would allow tankers to more fully load with oil.
In a proposal to the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, the port authority seeks to dredge both sides of a navigation channel east of Iron Workers Memorial Bridge starting in late September.
Charlotte Olson, acting vice-president of infrastructure at the port authority, said in a statement that the organization is launching a public engagement process alongside a technical review process already underway.
The dredging proposal for the Second Narrows in Burrard Inlet is meant “to boost trade capacity at the Port of Vancouver in support of national objectives to grow Canadian exports to overseas markets,” Olson said.
If approved, the application contemplates removing 25,000 square metres of material across two roughly 470-metre-long strips covering 1.75 hectares. The goal, according to documents, is to deepen the navigation channel between 1.3 and six metres.
The work is expected to last until February 2027, but delays could extend completion until 2028.
Currently, Aframax-class tankers that dock at Trans Mountain’s Westridge Marine Terminal only fill to 80 per cent capacity due to risks of bottoming out in the channel.
Trans Mountain’s terminal marks the end of the expanded 1,180-kilometre-long Trans Mountain pipeline that begins near Edmonton, Alta.
An expansion to the pipeline (known as TMX) was initiated in 2012 to triple its capacity to carry crude oil from Alberta to B.C.’s coast. It eventually led to a controversial $4.5-billion federal buyout in 2018.
Despite years of legal challenges, environmental protests and massive budget overruns, the pipeline officially went into commercial service in May 2024 at a cost of more than $34 billion—more than six times the original estimate.
Prime Minister Mark Carney first floated the idea to dredge the channel in the spring of 2025. Last year’s federal budget does not include any specific references to the project, beyond promises to “improve access” to overseas markets by investing in new airport, railway and port infrastructure.
B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix said he publicly supported the dredging in the spring of 2025.
The proposal to dredge the Burrard Inlet seeks to expand two sides of the navigation channel near Second Narrows. Vancouver Fraser Port Authority
The latest dredging proposal says that the work is expected to overlap with two decommissioned Metro Vancouver drinking water pipes that extend across the Second Narrows.
A 20-metre section of at least one of the wrought iron water pipes—possibly two—will need to be removed, the application said.
Another new water pipe sits 26 metres below the bottom of the dredge footprint, according to the project application.
Beyond the dredging, the port is looking to install new navigational aids and remove sections of “decommissioned waterlines” such as rocky shoreline barriers made of riprap.
The work will require “minor” vegetation clearing, and the use of tools such as a hydro hammer, ripping bucket and churn drill.
In documents, the port said the existing seabed is believed to be “naturally armoured,” as high-speed tidal currents have removed smaller sediments, leaving larger boulders and sandstone at the surface.
“It is anticipated that post-dredging, the surface will again naturally re-armour itself over time and no future maintenance dredging is expected to be required,” the port said.
The environmental review is meant to “confirm which mitigation measures are required for the proposed works to proceed while minimizing effects on the local environment,” said the port on its website.
“For example, we expect that any permitted work with the potential to impact fish or their habitat would take place within Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s least-risk window for Burrard Inlet, which runs annually from mid-August to the end of February,” the port said.
An environmental management plan is required to be developed before construction begins. The port added that more information about the impacts to the environment would be shared through the planning, permitting and procurement processes.
A spokesperson for the port said consultation with First Nations is “ongoing.”
When the project was first floated in the spring of 2025, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation warned the government that it holds inherent and constitutionally protected Indigenous title and rights to this area.
“A proposal to dig up the seabed, which is culturally a part of us, is a very serious concern,” said a statement from the nation.
The nation has been working on numerous projects to restore the shorelines and seabed around their territory, including a $10-million partnership launched with the federal and provincial governments in 2025 to advance that cause.
The nation was not immediately available to comment on the latest application.
Lucero Gonzalez, a conservation and policy campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, a Victoria-based environmental organization, said the application to dredge the inlet comes as killer whales have returned in numbers not seen in decades. She raised concerns over noise from dredging, damage to the seabed and the overall environmental impact on the water body.
“Once you touch the seabed, you can’t go back,” she said. “Instead of backing down, they’re doubling down on environmental destruction.”
Juan José Alava, principal investigator with the University of British Columbia’s Ocean Pollution Research Unit, previously said dredging can present numerous environmental concerns.
After the project was first proposed last year, Alava said the ocean floor tends to be a “cocktail” of industrial, agricultural and urban runoff contaminants, including dioxins, PCBs, hydrocarbons, heavy metals and microplastics.
“Sediment is basically a sink for all these pollutants, but it can become a source if we suspend all these materials with dredging,” he said at the time.
Digging up the seabed can also make the water more turbid, blocking out sunlight and affecting phytoplankton—the base of the marine food web.
“So they need to be very careful in what kind of technological application they are going to use to try to dredge,” Alvala added.
