Oil spill in Australia spreading to Sunshine Coast

Oil slick spreads to Sunshine Coast
Annie Guest, ABC 12 Mar 09;

ELEANOR HALL: Queensland's environmental disaster has worsened with the oil slick spreading to the Sunshine Coast.

The fuel leaked from a ship that was damaged in cyclonic conditions early yesterday and there is still no sign of the 31 containers of a potentially dangerous chemical which was lost overboard.

As Annie Guest reports, wildlife experts are now scrambling to save threatened animals, including turtles.

ANNIE GUEST: As the hours go by, this story goes from bad to worse. At Marcoola on one of the Sunshine Coast's longest strips of white sandy beach, Sherrida is among the volunteers saving turtles.

SHERRIDA: We've actually dug in. We've got quite a few eggs out of the nest that have been unhatched. There are a few turtles that have hatched, or they're very close to hatching, so we are going to relocate the nest to a safer spot. There was one that had oil all over the top of it, so we'll just have to have a look at it and see what we should do with that one.

ANNIE GUEST: Birds are also affected, according to Clive Cook from the Queensland Government's Environmental Protection Agency.

CLIVE COOK: We've had one confirmed report of a seabird with oil on it and two others unconfirmed.

ANNIE GUEST: Authorities expect there'll be more and earlier today surf lifesaver Dave McLaine told ABC Radio the Marcoola slick is spread in patches across the beach.

DAVE MCLAINE: We do have a lot of oil washed up onto the beach and it's quite heavy in some spots. It's caked all over my thongs and all over my feet. I've just spent about 15 minutes in the shower trying to get it all off.

ANNIE GUEST: It's part of a slick of up to 20 tonnes of heavy shipping fuel spreading from the dugong and dolphin populated waters of the Moreton Bay Marine Park north to the Sunshine Coast.

It came from the damaged cargo ship Pacific Adventurer that also lost 31 containers of the potentially dangerous ammonium nitrate overboard when it got into trouble during cyclonic weather early yesterday.

On Moreton Island across from Brisbane witnesses have been reporting since late yesterday that a slick 10 kilometres long had washed up on the national park-dominated island.

But the State Government has been slow to confirm it. This was the Sustainability Minister Andrew McNamara at 9.30 this morning.

ANDREW MCNAMARA: The oil spill trajectory model that we have suggests that oil will come ashore this morning on Bribie Island and at Caloundra. The EPA has shoreline clean-up assessment crews now on Moreton and on the Caloundra and Bribie Island waiting for that to happen and we will get stuck into the clean-up.

ANNIE GUEST: But he's defended the Government's handling of the episode.

ANDREW MCNAMARA: We're talking about you know within 24 hours having people on the ground looking to contain and clean up as the oil comes ashore. There's little that can be done during that sort of weather event.

ANNIE GUEST: Meantime, Australian Marine Conservation Society's Craig Bohm is unsure how much faith to put in authorities.

CRAIG BOHM: We would like to have seen greater action given the long time between we knew there was going to be an oil slick and we've actually had reports from non-government people that the oil is on the shores of Moreton Island and possibly on the Sunshine Coast. We just really need people to get on with this today and deal with it.

ANNIE GUEST: How would you characterise the flow of information from authorities about this event?

CRAIG BOHM: It has actually been very difficult to know whether it has been that the severe weather that has hampered the flow of information or lethargic response.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Craig Bohm from the Australian Marine Conservation Society ending that report from Annie Guest.

Oil spill spreads off south-east Queensland
Anna Hipsley, ABC 12 Mar 09;

MARK COLVIN: Yesterday's oil spill off Queensland is today's environmental disaster for the sun and surf tourist coastline from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast.

The problem is about 20 tonnes of leaked fuel oil, from a cargo ship which lost part of its load in rough seas off Stradbroke Island.

The northern end of Moreton Island is drenched in a black slick and oil's now washing up on beaches up to 50 kilometres away.

Anna Hipsley prepared this report.

TREVOR HASSARD: It's a really, really pristine area and now you've got this oil slick that's basically spread over 10 kilometres of beach and quite thick.

ANNA HIPSLEY: Trevor Hassard is director of Tangalooma Island Resort on the west coast of Moreton Island.

His resort has managed to avoid the effects of the spill so far, but the northern tip of the island hasn't been so lucky.

TREVOR HASSARD: People that have seen Honeymoon Bay are telling me that you can't see any white beach; it's a black wasteland.

ANNA HIPSLEY: The oil has also washed into a bird rookery on the island.

TREVOR HASSARD: We had three pelican arrive this morning at Tangalooma covered in oil. It's really quite sad because you can see a pristine white Australian pelican standing right beside this ugly brown bird, and the bird yesterday was a beautiful white Australian pelican.

ANNA HIPSLEY: Queensland's Sustainability Minister Andrew McNamara says the spill will likely reach Bribie Island.

ANDREW MCNAMARA: More oil will come ashore and unfortunately some birds will be caught up in that.

ANNA HIPSLEY: But so far the impact on wildlife has been minimal. Simon Baltais is president of Wildlife Queensland. He says it's incredibly lucky the oil hasn't washed into Moreton Bay.

SIMON BALTAIS: Moreton Bay is a biological hot spot. Its noted for its healthy dugong population; one of the healthiest in the southern Queensland waters.

The largest population of green turtles; one of the world largest populations of resident bottlenose dolphins; supports something like 60,000 migratory birds. So it's a massive amount of wildlife in this area and if the it was to move into Moreton Bay, it would be an absolute catastrophe.

ANNA HIPSLEY: Are there any indications at this stage that it may?

SIMON BALTAIS: Not at this stage. What we're hearing is that it's pretty much travelling in a northerly direction.

ANNA HIPSLEY: The slick has now reached beaches on the Sunshine Coast, up to 50 kilometres further north.

David McLean is from the Surf Life Saving Club at Marcoola.

DAVID MCLEAN: We're on the beach now with the tide down to low tide, where it currently is now. There's a lot of the oil contaminant on the beach. It looks like pumice, where the waves have washed it in.

ANNA HIPSLEY: The Sunshine Coast Regional Council is helping to clean-up part of the spill. Andrew Ryan from the council says two trucks, an excavator and a front-end loader have begun the massive task.

ANDREW RYAN: The loader and the excavator are basically skimming up the sand that's got the oil in it and taking that with trucks, the large articulated trucks, to a stockpile site just in Mudjimba.

ANNA HIPSLEY: The main clean-up will take about a week at a cost around $700,000. The bill will be covered by the insurers of the ship, the Pacific Adventure.

But what's still of concern to authorities is the 30 missing containers of ammonium nitrate, which fell overboard in the rough seas early yesterday morning.

Maritime Safety Queensland has been doing aerial flyovers of the area where they were lost. But Captain John Watkinson from Maritime Safety Queensland says the containers are still missing.

JOHN WATKINSON: Some of them can float but I think in the sea conditions that in all likelihood they've found their way to the bottom.

ANNA HIPSLEY: The Greens leader Bob Brown says Commonwealth authorities need to explain how the ship was allowed to travel into cyclone affected areas.

BOB BROWN: There are big questions to be answered here about how a chemical cargo on a ship which was, like all ships, prone to oil spills given the storm that overtook them, could have been steaming into that storm on the environmentally sensitive southern coastline of Queensland. Something went seriously wrong there.

ANNA HIPSLEY: An investigation will be launched into the incident. The shipping company could face fines up to $1.5-million.

MARK COLVIN: Anna Hipsley.