The B.C. government has thrown its support behind a proposal to dredge Burrard Inlet to allow oil tankers to fill up from the Trans Mountain pipeline and still fit under the Second Narrows Bridge.

Energy Minister Adrian Dix said the idea, most recently advanced by Prime Minister Mark Carney in March, would utilize the additional capacity of the newly expanded pipeline, which transports diluted bitumen and refined oil products from Alberta to the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby.

“Broadly, the premier and us have indicated our support for it,” Dix said in an interview.

Currently, the largest ships that can be accommodated at the Burnaby terminal are Aframax tankers. But they can’t be filled to their maximum capacity of almost 600,000 barrels of oil, due to the weight of the ship then striking the bottom of Burrard Inlet.

Dix argued there would be fewer tankers overall if existing ones were filled to capacity. However, the proposal is also likely to produce renewed concern from environmental advocates and local officials worried about the impact of a tanker crash and oil leakage in local waterways — something the BC NDP government had expressed concern about in the past as........

© BIV