Efforts to ban future crude oil projects in Vancouver are moving forward. The city of Vancouver’s planning commission voted Tuesday to prohibit future crude oil storage facilities.
“And to prohibit the expansion of any existing crude oil facilities," said Sandra Towne, the city’s long-range planning manager.
The proposal would also prohibit petroleum refineries, she said.
Vancouver has a moratorium on crude oil projects that the city council has extended several times. The current ban expires in mid-August.
The city is the site of what could the the nation’s largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country.
Towne said the proposed change to the city’s code wouldn’t affect the Tesoro-Savage project because it’s being reviewed by the state.
And she said Vancouver also wouldn’t have jurisdiction on any future projects large enough to require state review.
“But any other smaller petroleum or oil storage, crude oil, it would affect them," Towne said.
The city council is expected to discuss the proposal in June and vote on the measure in July.