New Artifical Reef off Gladstone.

[Bros]

Just looking at one report that all the white stuff is ground up coral, seems like it is taking a few metres off the top of Douglas shoal.

[davez104]

The damage done by the actual grounding will be minimal. The coral will regrow soon enough. The damage done by the chemicals leaking from the ship and those being sprayed from the air may take a bit longer to become apparent. Corals tend to bleach under stress, this could be caused by many different things, but the oils/other chemicals may be enough to cause a large section to bleach, then die. Then again, we might be lucky, it might all disperse without doing too much harm at all, corals are tougher than many give them credit for.

Dave.

[STUIE63]

Just looking at one report that all the white stuff is ground up coral, seems like it is taking a few metres off the top of Douglas shoal.

gees the media are a joke they have no frigging idea
Stuie

[Bros]

A bit of grist for the mill.

A unconfirmed story.

The first mate was also the loading officer and he was on the bridge at the time after having only had 1 hr sleep in the previous 24.

The course for the vessel was a track from the Fairway bouy to Douglas shoal and they were to turn 5 nm before the waypoint and then it is clear sailing past North Reef out to sea. I originally thought they cut the corner but doesn't appear to be so.

We will just have to wait and see what the inquiry says.

[banksmister]

I’m thinking about kicking a few bricks of the top off the Great Wall of China
[Another one of the 7 great wonders of the world] Do you think I would come home alive and upright?
P#ss poor management Kebbin & CO

[bundylundy]

Skipper says it was a minor event and repairs underway as reported to his consulate. Minor event, pig's bum I say. Minor event is leaving the bungs out of the tender, major event is driving a boat loaded with 65000 tonnes of coal and 900 tonnes of fuel oil up onto a reef. The other thing that alarms me is that a boom to put around the ship to control fuel oil spill had to come from Cairns. Should be here toomoorow. What the? There should be equipment to do this at every major port. Not 3 days away. Luckily the feul oil spill is small at the moment(better if there was none) compared to what it could have been. Just not good enough.

Jeff.

[NEWBY]

[B] Oil that leaked from a stricken coal carrier off Rockhampton has been dispersed, the Queensland government says.
Three to four tonnes of heavy fuel oil spilled from the Shen Neng 1 on Saturday after it hit a shoal inside a restricted zone of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
Transport department spokesman Mark Strong says dispersant sprayed onto the slick has worked, and the oil has broken up.
"The slick that was there has responded to the treatment and there have been no further additional spills," Mr Strong said this morning.
Authorities plan to have a floating boom around the Shen Neng 1 sometime on Tuesday to contain any further leaks.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will on Tuesday fly over the stricken ship, which is stuck on Douglas Shoal 70km east of Great Keppel Island.
Tug boats are being used to stabilise the ship which is continuing to grind against the shoal.
Authorities no longer believe it's at serious risk of breaking up but say that could change if the weather worsens.
The 230-metre Shen Neng 1 was en route from Gladstone to China when it ran aground, almost 30km from the shipping channels it should have been using.
Federal authorities have launched an investigation, including into reports the ship may have been taking a shortcut out of Australian waters.
Salvors are aboard the ship, planning how to refloat it, but say the process could take weeks.
AAP

Report courtesy of Brisbane Times Online.

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Its alright, settle down, Cruddy has it in hand.....
He is going to fly over the top of it...That in turn will fix it all.

No doubt we will then form a committee headed by Garret who will request a royal commission, and that in turn will exempt the Chinese government from any and all liability due to the fact they had english charts that they couldn't read them. So they will then issue a statement that this is unacceptable and Crudd will fly to China to sort it out. AND Just like he did to the Japs and Indonesians, he will PI$$ them off no end and we will lose our biggest trading partner.
Then we will lose the big mining companies. Unemployment will hit 12%. Inflation will double and interest rates will hit late teens again like in the 80's. Just like last time the stuffed the country up.
The Greens with Garret up front will jump for joy then jump ship because there will be nothing left for them to whinge and moan about and they may just bugger off to another country to bugger someone else's lifestyle up.

On the bright side, a 3mtr channel that is 200 mtrs long could be a great fishing spot in a few years when the toxicity has diminished....
Imagine the tidal run through it???
Thanks China....

[PADDLES]

yep, they're all taking turns to fly over it and look concerned and do not much. i'm thinking that it's time for some sort of legislation that makes shipping operators have enough insurance to cover the ENTIRE! cleanup bill for things like this. no insurance certificate then no entry into our waters to load/offload.

i'm no expert on oil cleanup, but doesn't the dispersant merely sink the oil to the bottom where no-one can see it and it still does the damage anyway? surely simply cleaning the stuff up is better, although it'd be a tough task in rough seas.

newby isn't silly with his point that the last thing we need is to destroy a trade relationship with china though. as has been mentioned earlier, good spill cleanup gear in each of the major ports (brisbane/gladdy/mackay/townsville) up our east coast would make the response so much quicker.

as another side issue, does anyone know the effect of all the antifoul off that hull scraping off on live coral, it'll turn everything it touches into a desert.

[FNQCairns]

Heard this morning that the captain of the ship is more concerned with the Aussie workers eating all their food on board than with nature.

Guess this makes sense if anyone has ever had dealing with the police over damaged property/whatever, the emotion of perceived ownership/self interests is not something the captain would care much over or has a moral obligation for at the level we politicly perceive these days.

ATM it's nothing more than just another divot in a golf course...from natures point of view anyway.

cheers fnq

[davez104]

as another side issue, does anyone know the effect of all the antifoul off that hull scraping off on live coral, it'll turn everything it touches into a desert.

As far as I know, most antifouls are copper based. Copper is deadly to most marine invertebrates, so that could caused localised deaths of corals, shrimps, crabs etc etc. It's a point I hadn't thought of before.

Dave.

[PADDLES]

yeah mate, i haven't researched it in any detail but my fuzzy memory tells me that when big ships like that run aground the damage caused by the antifoul is immense, it basically kills everything it rubs/settles on.

[davez104]

Sounds likely. I keep corals and marine fish/inverts in an aquarium, it only takes small amounts of copper in the water to lay waste to everything bar the fish.

Dave.

[Chine]

yep, they're all taking turns to fly over it and look concerned and do not much. i'm thinking that it's time for some sort of legislation that makes shipping operators have enough insurance to cover the ENTIRE! cleanup bill for things like this. no insurance certificate then no entry into our waters to load/offload.

i'm no expert on oil cleanup, but doesn't the dispersant merely sink the oil to the bottom where no-one can see it and it still does the damage anyway? surely simply cleaning the stuff up is better, although it'd be a tough task in rough seas.

newby isn't silly with his point that the last thing we need is to destroy a trade relationship with china though. as has been mentioned earlier, good spill cleanup gear in each of the major ports (brisbane/gladdy/mackay/townsville) up our east coast would make the response so much quicker.

as another side issue, does anyone know the effect of all the antifoul off that hull scraping off on live coral, it'll turn everything it touches into a desert.

Paddles,

Tankers and bulk carriers are treated differently for the responsibility of paying for spill cleanup.

Both types of vessels must carry compulsory insurance although there is a limit to their liability dependant on gross tonnage.

The "Sheng Neng 1" limit is a little over $23m whereas a tanker limit can be as high as $170m.

Having said that, it needs to be remembered that every vessel visiting Australian Ports pays an Oil Pollution Levy which funds a national response plan managed by AMSA. This facilitates the strategic placement of response equipment, vessels, management teams and training. With the number of visiting vessels over a number of years, this can produce a significant fund for responding to infrequent oil spill incidents.

For example, Each time the "Sheng Neng 1" visits, her OPL is in the order of $5,600. Supposing a rough figure of 20,000 national visits per year equates to roughly $112m per year in levies received.

The other point to remember is that the "Pacific Adventurer" had a cleanup shortfall of $6m. The QLD taxpayer is to be re-imbursed the shortfall by a temporary increase in the OPL which was announced by Albanese in February.

Not a perfect system although there is a system in place.

Rgds

Chine

[PADDLES]

good info chine, i knew none of that.

does the "oil pollution levy" get banked in it's own fund or does it get chucked into general revenue and chomped up by other government "projects" and not just sitting there to pay for oil spill response?

[Chine]

good info chine, i knew none of that.

does the "oil pollution levy" get banked in it's own fund or does it get chucked into general revenue and chomped up by other government "projects" and not just sitting there to pay for oil spill response?

Paddles,

That is an excellent question and one which I cannot answer.

The pragmatist in me leans toward consolidated revenue.........

Rgds

Chine