More air for their size
Children breathe more air relative to body weight. Active outdoor play can increase the amount they inhale. Their lungs and other organs are still developing.
Why children can be more susceptible ↗A citizen’s guide · Woodfibre LNG
The place we love.
The future we protect.
For our children. Our neighbours.
The living Sound.
Woodfibre LNG is seeking authorization for air emissions. Explore the evidence, understand the protections you can ask for, and write a letter in your own words.
Mom-led. Community-powered. Making waves for a healthy Howe Sound.
Start with the sourceFROM WOODFIBRE LNG
Woodfibre’s flaring simulation
Squamish Nation newsletter & alertsStay informed about Woodfibre & FortisBCProject updates from Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw. Separate from Sound Moms.An applicant-produced simulation of flaring, rather than footage of operations. Watch on YouTube ↗
Start here · The short version
What concerns us. What we’re asking for.
Sound Moms is a local, mom-led community initiative. We want clear answers and independently verified protections for families and Howe Sound before Woodfibre LNG begins operating.
Our main concerns
- Family health: how emissions could affect pregnancy, children’s developing lungs and people with heart or lung conditions.
- Flaring and failures: what changes during startup, equipment outages and unplanned releases—and what reaches our neighbourhoods.
- Accountability and recovery: how predictions will be checked and Howe Sound’s recovering habitats protected.
Our recommendations
- Establish a baseline: a full year of independent air-quality monitoring before commissioning emissions.
- Verify and publish: independent ongoing air and noise monitoring, public results and an updated independent health review.
- Require action: enforceable permit conditions, clear alerts and corrective measures when problems occur.
The applicant predicts limited effects at assessed community locations. These are questions and requested safeguards, not proof that harm will occur. We’re also calling for a broader project pause; decisions on activities beyond this air permit require the relevant authorities.
You don’t need to read every study or question. Start with what matters to you; the details are here if you want them.
A personal letter. A clear request.
Write your letter.
Aim to send by Nov. 27Deadline details
Applicant-based closing date: November 29, 2026. Confirm with BCER.
Woodfibre states 30 days from October 30. The official notice calculates the period from the last posting, publication, service or display. A request for more time does not extend the deadline.
Read the official notice ↗You don’t need to read 4,149 pages to make your voice heard. Choose your concerns and create a personal letter with supporting evidence and specific requests.
You can edit every word. Nothing is sent automatically.
Choose what matters to you.
Select your concerns. Two or three can keep your letter focused.
Application page references and supporting sources are included in your letter.
Additional saved questions
Send your letter ↓
Review your letter
Edit below. Scroll to read the full letter.
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A guide for parents
Small lungs.
Big reasons to ask.
Pregnancy, infancy and childhood can be sensitive periods for air-pollution exposure. Understanding why helps us ask for protections that fit real families.
Development has windows
Pregnancy and early life involve rapid development. Air pollution can trigger inflammation, and studies associate prenatal exposure with adverse birth outcomes. Effects vary by pollutant, timing and dose.
Read the health evidence ↗Some families need more protection
Health Canada identifies pregnant people, infants, young children and people with heart or lung conditions among higher-risk groups. Ask how assessment and alerts account for them.
See Canadian health guidance ↗Research, with its limits
What the flaring study can tell us
Cushing and colleagues studied 23,487 births near South Texas oil and gas development. At least 10 satellite-observed nightly flare events within 5 km over pregnancy were associated with 50% higher odds of preterm birth (odds ratio 1.50; 95% confidence interval 1.23–1.83).
This observational finding is from a different industrial setting. It does not predict Woodfibre’s local risk, prove causation, or define a safe-distance boundary. Higher odds are not a 50% chance of premature birth.
Read the original study and context ↗Family healthExplore 62 detailed
health questionsQuestions about pregnancy, children, air quality and accountability.Explore the questions
Bring the evidence into the conversation
62 questions for health and accountability
Open a theme to explore the original health guide. Save individual questions to your comment.
Understand the airPollutants in
plain languageUnderstand the names, abbreviations and health concerns.Get to know the pollutants
Fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅)Airborne particles about 2.5 micrometres or smaller. They can reach deep into the lungs.
Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂)A gas associated with combustion and respiratory effects. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) describes a broader group.
Sulphur dioxide (SO₂)A gas that can irritate airways. Match a comparison to the same exposure duration.
Carbon monoxide (CO)A gas that interferes with oxygen delivery at sufficient exposure.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)A group of chemicals. A total VOC figure does not tell you the concentration of each compound, such as benzene.
Hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) / total reduced sulphur (TRS)Individual and grouped sulphur compounds relevant to unburned releases. Odour criteria and health benchmarks differ.
Four places. Specific questions.
Start where
you call home.
A regional summary cannot answer every local question. Ask for the coordinates, elevation and results that represent the places your family spends time.
The new Furry Creek and Lions Bay sets are information requests. Distance alone does not establish exposure or safety.
The Sound Moms request
Baseline first.
A full year.
Understand the air before adding operational emissions.
We advocate for a pause on the project until one year of independently reviewed baseline monitoring is complete. That broader request needs an authority-by-activity decision. The immediate air-permit ask is specific: prevent commissioning and operational emissions until the baseline conditions are met.
Explore the baseline questions →Proposed protection · not an existing condition
Require 12 consecutive months of representative, quality-assured ambient-air monitoring before commissioning flaring or operational emissions begin, with independent review, community input on locations, public data and a written regulatory decision confirming that baseline gaps have been addressed.
01 / WinterCold & calm conditions
02 / SpringChanging circulation
03 / SummerSmoke & outdoor activity
04 / AutumnSeasonal transitions
What would make the year meaningful?
- A published design: justified locations for Britannia Beach, Furry Creek, Squamish and Lions Bay, plus meteorology and reference sites.
- The right pollutants: continuous monitoring where appropriate, plus compound-specific and event sampling justified by emissions and health questions.
- Quality and completeness: instrument performance, calibration, laboratory methods, detection limits, seasonal coverage and a plan to replace missing data.
- Independent control: transparent selection, funding and conflicts safeguards; access to raw data; independent interpretation and publication rights.
- A valid comparison: distinguish construction, existing local sources and future operations; retain wildfire observations and clearly explain any exclusions used for regulatory calculations.
- A decision before emissions: independent baseline review, health input, published acceptance criteria and enforceable actions if requirements are not met.
BC’s 2012 guidance for mine proponents says a year may be necessary in many circumstances and stresses seasonal coverage. It supports the rationale; it is not a binding one-year rule for this LNG project. A single year also cannot capture all long-term variability. Read the guidance →
Because construction is underway, data collected now would describe pre-commissioning conditions, not a pristine pre-construction baseline. Ask how current works and other sources will be recorded and accounted for. A broader construction pause requires the relevant authority to identify its powers and decide on that request.
From concern to a concrete request
Protections you
can ask for.
You don’t need to write like a lawyer. Explain how you may be affected, then ask the decision-maker to use the powers available to address your concern.
Have your concerns considered
Put your concern
on the record.
Section 7(1) of the Public Notification Regulation provides a route for potentially affected people to submit written concerns.
Ask: “Please treat my letter as written notice of how I may be affected.”
Read section 7(1) ↗Ask for missing information
Get the evidence
needed to decide.
Section 3 of the Public Notification Regulation allows the Director to require further information considered relevant to the application.
Ask: “Please require the information needed to answer this concern before deciding.”
Read section 3 ↗Request enforceable conditions
Make protection
part of the permit.
Section 14(1)(c)–(e) of the Environmental Management Act provides powers for monitoring, studies, reporting and procedures in permit requirements.
Ask: “Please include specific monitoring, reporting and response requirements.”
Read section 14 ↗These provisions support requests; they do not guarantee a particular decision or an automatic project-wide pause. The letter builder can add legal notes below your signature.
Put my concerns into a letter →Before the first flare
Five protections.
Written into the decision.
Connect a source page to a practical protection, a way to verify it and the person responsible. These are proposed conditions for legal and technical review.
Open the evidence-to-condition table: proposed wording, proof and decision owner
| Evidence & limitation | Proposed condition | Proof & decision owner |
|---|
A legal basis for specific requests.
Environmental Management Act section 14(1)(c)–(e) allows requirements for monitoring, studies, reporting and analytical procedures. Each proposed condition needs project-specific review; this does not establish an automatic right to a one-year pause. Read the Act →
Ask for a written decision on each protection: adopted, modified or declined, with reasons, evidence, timing and responsibility. Request a separate authority-by-activity decision on a broader construction pause.
International commitments
Children. Health.
The living Sound.
Connect international commitments to a concrete local concern and a specific request. The letter builder lets you choose which references to include.
What these commitments can—and cannot—do
Canada is a party to the three treaties below. They bind Canada internationally, but ratification does not automatically make each provision directly enforceable in a BC permit. They can inform interpretation and support requests for protection. They do not themselves require this project to stop, specify emission limits or mandate a year of independent monitoring. Canadian legal context ↗
Children’s rights
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Articles 3, 6 and 24
Children’s best interests, survival, development and health, including environmental pollution risks and prenatal and postnatal care.
A practical request: Please explain how the assessment and proposed permit conditions protect children’s health and development and address pregnancy-related exposures, in light of Canada’s commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Articles 3, 6 and 24.
Read the treaty ↗Right to health
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 12
The highest attainable standard of health, including improvements in environmental and industrial hygiene.
A practical request: Please explain how preventive measures and exposure reduction for vulnerable populations reflect Canada’s commitments under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Read the treaty ↗Biodiversity and habitat
Convention on Biological Diversity, Articles 8 and 14
Ecosystem protection and assessment to avoid or minimize significant adverse effects on biodiversity, as far as possible and as appropriate.
A practical request: Please explain how assessment of emissions and deposition, habitat monitoring and corrective measures support Canada’s commitments under Articles 8 and 14 of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Read the treaty ↗Supporting guidance and declarations: their different roles
General Comment No. 26: children and the environment
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s 2023 interpretation addresses children’s heightened vulnerability to pollution, protective environmental standards and public environmental-health data. It is interpretive guidance, not a separate treaty. Read General Comment No. 26 ↗
Rio Declaration: participation and precaution
Principle 10 supports access to environmental information and public participation. Principle 15 addresses cost-effective preventive measures where serious or irreversible damage is threatened despite incomplete scientific certainty. The declaration is not itself a binding treaty. Read Principles 10 and 15 ↗
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
This is a declaration, not a convention. BC’s Declaration Act requires measures to align provincial laws with it, in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples. Respect Squamish Nation’s own rights, governance and decision-making. Sound Moms does not speak for the Nation or claim its consent rights on behalf of other residents. Read BC’s Act and the Declaration ↗
What needs an answer
Five priorities.
Clear requests.
Focus on issues that could affect the assessment or the protections put in place. Open each card for the evidence, the applicant’s explanation and a concrete request.
Reviewed November 5, 2026. These are documented protection questions and assessment uncertainties, not five proven failures. The complete 4,149-page package was screened, with close reading of relevant sections—not a line-by-line audit of every laboratory value or an independent model review. The PDF includes lower-priority issues and technical questions for expert review; the full question bank remains below.
Explore the full question bank — search by place or concern
The community question bank
Clear sources.
Concrete asks.
The original 20-topic database, expanded with local and baseline questions. Open a topic for evidence, page links, questions and a requested action.
No topics match yet.
Try a broader word or reset the filters.
All-community topics appear for each place. Original database wording may specifically mention Britannia and Squamish; each new local set adds the community-specific request.
Keep the original close
Read it.
Check it. Ask.
Primary documents, public-health guidance and research are labelled by source type. Applicant statements, regulator records and community advocacy serve different roles.
How to read this guide—and its page numbers
PDF p 94 means page 94 in the complete October 2026 application, counting the cover as page 1. It is also Technical Assessment Report, printed p 46. Page links open the original 115 MB PDF; some mobile viewers may open its cover, so use the PDF page counter.
Page references checked November 4, 2026. Download the page-reference check (CSV) ↗
This review checks the cited air-emissions technical passages and builds on Sound Moms’ October 31 question database and November 1 health guide. It is not a line-by-line audit of all 4,149 pages or independent validation of the model. New Furry Creek and Lions Bay questions request coverage and local results; they do not assume either community was excluded.
The applicant predicts limited community effects and results below the cited objectives at community receptors. A documented limitation is a reason to seek evidence, not proof of harm. Predictions, measurements, permit conditions and community requests are different things.
TARTechnical Assessment Report
TDRTechnical Data Report
DMPDispersion Modelling Plan
ReceptorA calculation point; not necessarily a physical monitor
WDAWaste Discharge Authorization
BCERBC Energy Regulator
A guide we can keep improving.
Cited application passages checked November 4, 2026. The original 20-topic database was prepared October 31; the 62-question health guide November 1. The new local and baseline sets are proposed questions. No regulator responses are represented as received.
Corrections, written answers or additional community locations? Share them with Sound Moms →
Start small. Start together.
You know what
you want to protect.
Your experience belongs in this decision. Turn it into a clear, personal request.
Write my letter ↑
Begin with the place you love.
Please write complete statements in full sentences, using your own words. Your answers will go directly into your letter; the guide handles the references.
A general location is enough; no street address is needed.
Living elsewhere? Explain your connection to Howe Sound and how the proposed air emissions may adversely affect you. If you’re writing to express broader concern or support, say so honestly; we cannot guarantee how those comments will be considered.
The official public notice (page 4) invites relevant information from people who may be adversely affected by the proposed discharge. It does not specify a residency boundary.
Write 1–3 complete sentences about your connection to this place, what you want to protect, or how you’re concerned you may be affected.
Your words will become the personal introduction to your letter.