Meraiah Foley, The New York Times 27 Sep 09;
SYDNEY, Australia — Visitors hoping to peek at Australia’s exotic marine life usually head straight for the Great Barrier Reef. But conservationists say that an equally remarkable, but lesser known, marine environment is under threat from the booming oil and gas exploration taking place among the reefs and atolls off Australia’s northwest coast.
A damaged oil well in the region has been spewing thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Timor Sea since Aug. 21, when a blowout forced the evacuation of all 69 workers on the platform. Emergency crews have been working overtime to contain the spill, but officials say it could take about three more weeks to plug the leak.
The platform is above the Montara oil field, about 155 miles northwest of Mungalalu Truscott Airbase in the remote Kimberley region of Australia. The leaking well head is owned by Thailand’s national petroleum company, PTT Exploration and Production, one of many energy companies that have set up operations in western Australia to feed Asia’s growing appetite for oil and gas.
In the first half of this year, more than 50 wells were drilled in the tropical waters off western Australia, adding to hundreds of other recent projects. Last month, the government gave Chevron the green light to expand its exploration of the huge Gorgon gas field, a $40 billion project that was opposed by conservationists because of its potential environmental impact.
Economists credit the booming trade in petroleum and other mineral resources for helping Australia escape the brunt of the global economic downturn, but environmentalists say this prosperity comes at a price. They say the Montara oil spill is merely a sign of things to come unless greater protections are extended to vast stretches of tropical reefs off northwestern Australia.
“It’s a classic conflict between development and the ecological values of the region,” said John Carey, manager of the Kimberley Conservation Program with the Pew Environment Group. “We need to get the balance right. But the balance at the moment is that less than 1 percent of this globally significant area is under any form of protection.”
The Thai oil company said it was still investigating what had caused the blowout. To stop the spill, the company has hired a specialist rig to drill 1.6 miles below the seabed and flood the area with heavy mud.
But such highly specialized equipment is not easy to come by. It took three weeks to tow the rig from Singapore.
The company has declined to estimate how much oil has spilled into the sea, saying it is too dangerous to take accurate measurements from the damaged rig. The company and Australian maritime officials, who are helping to clean up the spill, say that the slick is around 25 miles wide and 85 miles long, but that the leakage appears to be slowing.
The federal environment minister, Peter Garrett, said this month that the government believed that 300 to 400 barrels of oil were leaking into the sea each day. That amounts to more than 450,000 gallons of oil, and unknown quantities of gas and condensate, since the blowout began. By that count, the Montara leak is relatively small. The Exxon Valdez, by comparison, dumped around 11 million gallons when it ran aground off the Alaskan coast in 1989.
The oil slick has not reached any coastlines, thanks in part to mild weather conditions and efforts by the Australian government to break up the slick by spraying it with chemical dispersant. But conservationists worry that the spill could take a heavy toll on marine animals that feed and travel on or close to the ocean’s surface.
“We need to shatter the myth that an oil spill is only a problem when it washes up on beaches,” said Gilly Llewellyn, the manager of conservation programs with WWF-Australia.
PTT, the Thai company, has said it is committed to helping clean up the spill and plans to conduct environmental monitoring of the region to assess the damage. Australia’s energy minister, Martin Ferguson, has announced plans for a thorough investigation into the cause.
Mr. Ferguson and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, which represents 98 percent of oil and gas operators in the country, have defended the industry’s record, saying the Montara well head leak is the first offshore blowout since 1984.
Marine researchers and conservation groups say they are realistic about the economic drive to continue developing the region, but want the government to designate more marine sanctuaries and to enact stronger environmental regulations in western Australia. The government is expected to release a strategy for the region next year.
“You can’t stop production; this is a huge area of future exploration,” said Nic Bax, the principal investigator of the Marine Biodiversity Research Hub. “We need to make sure we’re working cooperatively with industry to work out what is the best and safest way to do this.”
Fears oil spill will become 15,000sqkm killing slick
Lex Hall, Timor Sea The Australian 28 Sep 09;
TWO hundred kilometres off Australia's northwest coast, chunks of toxic residue, fallout from the nation's third largest oil spill, stain the normally clear water that is home to thousands of marine species and birdlife.
Conservationists with the WWF believe this is clear evidence of the damage caused by a leak at the Montara oil field, 200km off the coast of Broome.
As it moves into its fifth week, the spill is leaking at a rate of 400 barrels a day.
The rig's operator, Thai-owned petrol and exploration company PTTEP Australasia, say it will be at least another three weeks before the problem is fixed.
For now though, conservationists estimate the spill to be covering an area of at least 15,000sq km -- or 100 times the size of Sydney Harbour.
WWF is near the end of a seven-day mission to survey the wildlife in the area and determine the level of toxicity in the water.
So far, they've observed an abundance of marine and bird life, including many rarely seen species such as Hawksbill turtles and sea snakes.
The observations were made before entering areas with heavy oil pollution. WWF-Australia's conservation director Gilly Llewellyn says the chunks of waxy residue found about 100km from the Montara field likely came from the August 21 spill.
"If you look at them closely, they seem to be leaving oily streaks behind them," she tells The Australian. "When you rub them between your fingers, you get an oily, waxy feel. What this strongly indicates is that we've got the waxy remnants of weathered oil here."
Dr Llewellyn's team has travelled to the edge of the 40km exclusion zone, taking water samples. As they move closer to the rig, the surface of the water becomes glossier, indicating the presence of "fresher", more potent oil and just metres from the boat a sea snake writhes in the milky sludge. "This is an area where we're seeing a lot of seabirds, fish, sea snakes and cetaceans (whales and dolphins)," she says.
So far, 11 birds have been affected, with five dead, according to the Department of Environment. But Dr Llewellyn's team fears the toll could be much greater, with up to 30,000 sea snakes and 16,000 turtles at risk.
"We have to dispel the myth that it's a desert out here," she says. "This is a rich feeding area for many species of marine life, as well as migratory birds."
Many seabirds feed off the surface and it's feared their breeding patterns could be terminally disrupted. Dolphins, too, are at risk of ingesting contaminants.
Macquarie University dolphin expert Kersten Bilgmann says this could have lasting effects on what is one of the world's largest tropical marine ecosystems.
"Just as in humans, loading of toxins weakens the immune system," Dr Bilgmann says.
PTTEP says it will be three more weeks before they can plug the leak. Dispersant has been used to break up the oil but it's feared toxicity could persist.
"It's essentially moving the problem from the surface to beneath the sea, which supports a wealth of marine life," says ecologist Simon Mustoe, head of the Ecology Group for the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand.
A Senate inquiry into the leak has been announced.
