Great Barrier Reef Oil Spill

[88K5]

China has been good at making the news in negative ways...

 

[slapshot]

Strange how the government officials don't sound that worried even though the Barrier Reef must be a huge part of their economy. ??? If that happened here it would be on the news 24/7 and heads would roll. Maybe they've never had their own Exxon Valdes situation. Somebody needs to light a fire under their @$$es.

That's because it is loaded with coal not oil. Other than its own. They are not happy about it but at least coal is way easier to clean up then crude. If they rush and rupture their fuel storage area then they will have a problem. Better calm heads. I don't get why they don't just pump off the fuel? These are just sad events but have no fear someone will pay.

 

[gilmour01]

maybe the captain has allergies. i know sometimes i have allergy attacks when i'm driving, and a sneeze here, nasal snort there, and next thing i know i'm 9 miles from where i want to be. (in all seriousness it seriously sux though) =(

 

[Reef Goddess]

Originally Posted by lazyreefer
Not to be flippant but really which is worse.....a once in a blue moon occurrence damaging the reef or the daily removal of hundreds of pounds of Acans and other assorted coral shipped to the good ol' USA for sale on the internet and our LFS.

Coral collection is actually a highly regulated thing in Australia, its not like other areas of the Pacific where they take corals willy nilly. Even other countries have to abide by CITES agreements as far as coral collection is concerned.

Most all coral reefs are damaged by pollution (oil spills), farm run-off, etc not by collection for our hobby. Oil/fuel spills are not as infrequent as you might think they are.

Expressing apathy towards things like oil/fuel spills and other ecological damage is one of the reasons why governments do not put in stronger environmental measures. If the voters do not care, then why should they?


This list is not up to date, but it gives you a good idea of how frequent oil spills actually are:

The Mariner Group -- Oil Spill History

 

[mr_X]

that's a lot of oil!
actually, it's humanity in general-
Coral Reefs

 

[CoralBandit]

Great Barrier Reef OIL SPILL :(

Great Barrier Reef rammed by Chinese coal ship - latimes.com

 

[CoralBandit]

Australia rushes to contain Barrier Reef oil spill | MNN - Mother Nature Network

This ones more recent

 

[650-IS350]

I wonder how much they would fine the company? probably only a couple hundred thousand while the damages would be in the millions... if the problem becomes at it's worst.

Look at exxon valdez? how much was the company fined and how much was the damage and cost of fixing?

 

[nater]

that is some **** bull. things like this just shouldn't happen. **** shame.

 

[CoralBandit]

Not to be flippant but really which is worse.....a once in a blue moon occurrence damaging the reef or the daily removal of hundreds of pounds of Acans and other assorted coral shipped to the good ol' USA for sale on the internet and our LFS.

You could look at it like a bunch of tiny little boats crash into the reef daily killing off lots of natural coral and no one pays it much mind 'cause its barely noticeable. Or maybe its because it winds up in our tanks.....

Australia is pretty hard core on regulating how much leaves the reef. People dont go out and pluck random pieces from my understanding. They actually take a piece of the coral and grow them out (mariculture) Im not sure how scolys are divvied up though they must be taken but I really dont know how they are regulated but NO its not the wild west and a bunch of people are not freely swimming in the reefs and loading up there pickups with loads of corals lol swimming in those reefs is pretty risky

 

[MAKcorals]

+1 for aquaculture. This is truly a horrific event though.

 

[ddiver]

I'm very angry and disturbed by this.way to start the week off..