Barrier Reef oil spill April 4, 2010

Investigations

The Shen Neng 1 was travelling at full speed from Gladstone without a marine pilot in a restricted zone - 15 kilometers outside the shipping lane - when it hit Douglas Shoal.

Its crew did not notify authorities for two hours.

The bulk carrier's presence in the restricted zone will be the subject of an investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

Although the absence of a marine pilot onboard will be a matter for the government to examine, the shipping company was not required by law to employ a pilot.

Ms Bligh said Commonwealth investigators would examine why the ship was 15km outside the shipping lane.
"This ship is in an area, a restricted zone of the Great Barrier Reef, where there is no authorised shipping and it is totally off limits.''

Ms Bligh said the ship's owners could be fined up to $1 million and the captain could be hit with a $250,000 penalty.
Greens leader Bob Brown, who will today charter a plane to fly over the site, called on the government to make it mandatory for bulk carriers to have a marine pilot onboard when travelling through the inner passage of the Great Barrier Reef.

"Both Canberra and Brisbane have bowed to the coal and shipping companies to avoid this common sense requirement," Mr Brown said in a statement yesterday.

Ms Bligh said pilotage issue was under active study given the expected increase in the number of vessels travelling through the area as coal and liquified natural gas exports grew.

Queensland Greens spokeswoman Larissa Waters said the Great Barrier Reef should not be used as a coal highway.

"The state government is being blinded by royalties and their short-sightedness will go down in history as killing the reef," Ms Waters said.

Maybe we can send them all the Chinese-made tainted sheet rock to sop up all the oil.

No ******* pilot!

Bastards waited two hours to call it in. Probably talking with their damn leaders trying to figure out if they could get away with it.

No pilot required By the QLD state government Dlowan.

Im thinking 10 years in the slammer for the captain. Closed trial of course

Pre-*******-cisely.

And this isn't the first time that has caused a disaster. Time to pay for pilots Queensland.

Poor Great Barrier Reef!

All this has been addressed before yet we still allow the majority of foriegn owned companies to register in Liberia and recruit filipinos for sailors. Why would anyone care about the local rules ? If we had ships registered in Oz and sailed by Oznians and owned by Oz companies, I am positive most of this would never happen. Many of these ships are barely sea worthy but Nigeria being a foriegn flag of convenience does not check vessels. We order maintainence on foriegn vessels in our ports only when there is something obviously wrong.

Sheng neng 1 is a chinese owned vessel. I have No data on the nationality of the crew and i suspect neither do you.
Back to ignore for you dickhead.

The incident has again sparked debate over whether pilots should be compulsory on vessels traversing the passage between the outer reef and the Queensland coastline.

It's a debate that has gone on for decades.

A near-identical incident in 2000 saw a Malaysian-flagged container ship run aground on Sudbury Reef off Cairns.
The incident again sparked media debate about the need for pilots on the large freighters which traverse the waters of the inner reef.

The official report into the grounding (of the Malaysian-flagged container ship) by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, noted that "a detailed study of pilotage in the inner route of the Great Barrier Reef is currently being undertaken jointly by AMSA and the Queensland Department of Transport".

Media reports at the time quoted the Marine Pilots Association, which said the question of reef pilotage had been reviewed three times since 1993, with no positive result.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/reef-pilot-controversy-has-long-history-20100404-rlg2.html
AAP

just another example of the Chinese not being responsible. We set the stage in the 1970's trying to bring them into the modern world by granting them privileges on the world economic stage before demanding that they show a willingness to partake in the standards of modern civilization. The argument was that as they prosper they will out of self interest adopt modern standards. There were a fair number of people who said that this would not happen, and even if it did common sense dictated that they should be made pony up first before they got the goods. Doing otherwise even if the Chinese did grow up is bad for morale. These critics of policy were shut up, by what at the time was the new PC regulations. Support policy or get out they were told, if you refuse you will be drummed out, and they were.

We in the West are so ******* weak, and stupid.

daamn. I hate these incidents , why do thye seem to always occur in sensitive environments too.

Whats the sea temp? A series of bacterial agents can metabolize the fuel if its in a nice temperature window. (greater than 65 degrees F)

This all seems so stupid. I mean, the reefs aren't moving around. They have definite locations.

and last I heard, we had invented this thing called GPS...

This does not happen by accident, it can only happen by gross negligence.

They were way off course.

The Australian government was not exactly a paragon of responsibility in regard the massive Timor Sea oil spill last year. God knows what damage that's done.:



http://www.theage.com.au/national/action-on-timor-oil-spill-20091231-lkz1.html

As i understand things the spill is from diesel fuel. The engine room and engine is damaged. 900 (odd) tonnes of diesel oil would make a real mess so lets hope its a slow leak.

Hawkeye and dlowan - my point exactly. Negligence. Almost seems intentional.

I want to know if they thought they were taking a short cut. That would be my first guess, but I dont know.

I doubt it's intentional. Maybe negligence, or they were up to some kind of no good., or crap equipment?

Or, another Exxon Valdez with a drunk in charge of the ship?