Could the already-decimated Southern bluefin tuna population be about to be devastated for good by the Montara oil spill? Crikey’s crack graphics department has uncovered some eerie parallels between the slick’s current satellite status and the spawning zone for the prized high-value fish, which this week had its Australian quota cut by 25% amid tumbling global stocks.
Here’s the latest satellite image of the Montara slick:
And here’s the Southern bluefin tuna’s spawning zone:
According to experts on the ground, with the spawning season for Southern bluefin stretching from September to April, the key question is what is happening to the oil below the surface, and how that might pose a risk to spawning fish.
Gilly Llewellyn from the World Wildlife Fund, who recently returned from the slick zone, told Crikey: “certainly with the perilous status of the Southern bluefin tuna population it would be a huge concern if the slick were to cause additional pressure and risk of recruitment to a population that is literally decimated”.
Any further reduction in the stock is likely to hit smaller fishing operations hardest, who under the new international guidelines are required to reduce their catch by 25%. Bigger operators, whose owners are starting to feature on the nation’s rich lists, can simply pass on any quota reduction to Japanese consumers in the form of higher prices.
Concern has also been raised over other fish species, including the gold band snapper, which has a spawning season of January to April, and the Red Emperor, which is spawning now. Whale sharks, the basis of a multi million dollar tourism industry in WA, are also believed to swimming through the slick zone.
A fourth attempt by Thai company PTTEP to plug the leak has proven unsuccessful, according to a report this morning. There are also reports that oil-affected seaweed is starting to wash up on the Indonesian island of Roti.
Around 400 barrels of oil a day has been leaking into the Timor Sea after the leak sprung nine weeks ago. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has been using dispersants in an attempt to clean-up the spill, but is yet to make much of an impact.
Crikey understands that Greens Senator Rachel Siewert is likely to raise the issue of the slick again today in Parliament.
Finally, someone prepared to join the dots! Thank you Andrew
I have often wondered how it is that the oil and gas industry is able to maintain the veneers that their operations are worlds best practice in the face of regular spills around the Australian coastline; and that the Government (of each political leaning) persist with the claim that they are responsibly regulating.
Last week the Government and industry released their joint monitoring programme – a good six weeks after the spill started. Even a cursory read of document reveals how much baseline information has to be gathered, which begs the question why was this not collected before the drilling began?
There is no mention of monitoring any impacts to Indonesian ecosystems, and not surprising no mention of tuna. The document also makes unsubstantiated statements that impacts of the oil spill on marine animals ‘remain unlikely’.
The document claims that experts have been consulted, so why then does civil society need to remind policy makers that marine animals can ingest oil-derived toxic compounds either directly from the water or with their food. That poisonous vapor can also be inhaled by whales and dolphins and especially when the volatile components evaporate into the air from freshly spilled oil.
With anywhere from 10 to 20 million litres of oil spilled into the ocean it is a good bet that there will be chronic longer-term effects of oil entering the food-chain potentially affecting the whole system. Much of this will happen far from sight and if marine animals are killed or otherwise affected – days, months and years into the future – we are unlikely to be witness to this.
None of this information is particularly ground breaking nor new. We have know most of this information for a few decades. Why then is this not openly admitted? And more to the point why is it that there is minimal public (and media) concern?
In situations like this, the government should force the companies responsible to hire a fleet of ships and mop up the oil from the surface of the ocean. It’s outrageous what they can get away with when pollution is not directly impacting communities of people or cute animals.
The oil spill figures are in my judgment greatly under estimated in both the story and the penultimate comment, though the general thrust is to be applauded and all credit to WA Greens senator Siewart in particular:
Senator Siewart at Estimates October 21 evoked from a Dept of Environment official that the rate of flow from the blowout was 2,000 barrels a day, NOT 400.
This was so important as industry and govt backgrounded agianst The Greens to Laurie Oakes resulting in national press she was exaggerating back on Sept 4th 2009. But Oakes was wrong. Siewart was vindicated as per the evidence and presser from that Oct 21-22, 2009.
At 2000 barrels a day we are talking 2000 x 70 days (since August 19th) x 42 US gallons to the barrell, some 5,880,000 gallons of oil spill.
The Exxon Valdez as quoted by wikipedia was 10.8 million gallons.
Yesterday early we broadcast to that effect with chronology to all federal and NSW parliament a link explaining how Minister Garrett in particular, and for his master PM Rudd, operating a PR diversion the global scale disaster West Altas/Montara has become. (By the way most of the press via google seem to refer to it as West Altas).
Refer also last Monday, and Tuesday Crikey and ABC Unleashed for backgrounders on this, with robust string of comments on each.
To quote The Greens presser 22 October 2009
“Yesterday (Wed 21/10/09), under questioning by Greens’ Marine Issues Spokesperson Senator Rachel Siewert, Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism officials said that PTTEP had given them no basis for their 400-barrels-day figure, and their own calculations based on Geoscience Australia data suggested a rate of around 2,000 barrels-a-day, plus condensate.”
Notice too News Corp broadsheet The Australian runs this story yesterday showing dissension now in the industry sector on the north west shelf:
“Industry lashes oil-spill firm
Nicolas Perpitch | October 28, 2009
AUSTRALIA’S peak oil and gas body has turned on one of its own, saying established safeguards exist to prevent oil-well blowouts and the disastrous West Atlas spill in the Timor Sea should never have happened. …..[continues]”
There are the makings of a good story here.
The two images show no connection with each other, the distance between the oil and the spawning zone being as far apart as European countries. Nothing “eerie”about that. If there is a drift, please measure and quote it to your intelligent lay readers.
You could have asked some experts and then told us what oil does to the seawater just below the surface. For example, are there enough soluble toxic compounds in the slick to threaten fish in the near surface zone?
If there really are “experts on the ground” in the Timor Sea, we want to know who they are, and what they say about the sensitivities of fish assembling to mate, how tuna spawn in the open ocean and the sensitivity of the spawn itself.
Who is it that have raised what concern over “other fish species”? I was under the impression that the snapper spawn on the continental slope, far below any oil slick. Whale sharks don’t come up for air and are big enough to dive under and swim past any oil slick, so how would they be affected?
Similarly, the oilmen’s jargon is useless to us, whereas a quick conversion would tell us that oil is leaking at about 60 kL a day.
Come on Crikey!
PS: Er, did you really mean “a multi-million tourism industry in WA”?