Pelicans and turtles are among the animals suffering the effects of an oil spill from a cargo ship that has coated Queensland’s beaches in an oily slick.
Here’s the latest report from the Associated Press.
The Australian Science Media Centre has and will continue to wrap-up commentary from scientists on the environmental impact of the spill, one of Queensland’s worst environmental disasters.
Professor Ravi Naidu is Managing Director of the Co-operative Research Centre For Contamination Assessment And Remediation Of The Environment (CRC CARE).
“This incident can potentially have a very significant impact on the aquatic ecosystem. Looking at the Queensland coast, we have a pristine environment. What this spill can do is impact these sensitive aquatic environment and in doing so it can impact the lifecycle of the marine ecosystem. The problem with this is that the oil spill will not disappear quickly. It will be present in the aquatic environment for a while. All it will do is disperse, and after dispersing the oil and the lubricant can be there not just for months, but for years unless we actively remediate it. Remediation and management of the oil spill can cost millions of dollars.
“Aquatic ecosystem includes microorganisms, macro organisms, animals and also birds that look for the ocean as the source of their food. As the birds try to feed on fish, the oil spilled would impact on their feathers which could lead to slow death of the birds.
“Twenty tonnes is a lot less than what we’ve seen in other places but still quite a large spill. In 1975 there was about 15,000 tonnes spilt off the coast of Western Australia. The most recent one was when 25 tonnes spilled off Gladstone, Queensland in 2006. And in 1999 at Port Stanvac in South Australia there was about 230 tonnes spilt.
“Ammonium nitrate is less of a risk for two reasons, partly because you still have it in containers which is good. If the containers bust and it is released you have a concentration effect at that point and this can cause acute toxicity to fish but ultimately ammonium nitrate will dilute. But the problem with oil is that it doesn’t dilute, it doesn’t mix, it generally floats and this can lead to long-term contamination of the coastal region and sea water.”
Dr Leonie Andersen is coordinator of the Port Curtis Integrated Monitoring Program (PCIMP) which assessed the 2006 oil spill in Gladstone when 25 tonnes was spilt. Dr Andersen is based at Vision Environment and is also Adjunct Research Fellow at CQ University’s Centre for Environmental Management.
“In comparison to the Gladstone spill, it’s fairly devastating. At least with the Gladstone spill approximately two thirds of the oil was able to be recovered – there was a lot of control whereas in this case, I don’t think they have any control. I think it’s pretty severe with the weather conditions the way they are, it’s going to spread it up and down the coast at the whim of mother nature. Instead of a being a situation where they can control and recover, it’s just going to come back to clean up, and it’s not an easy job.
“It will be interesting to see if there are funds for the cleanup, but whether there will be funds to research the actual impacts of the oil spill on those habitats, could be another matter.”
Professor Mike Kingsford is from the School of Marine and tropical Biology at James Cook University in Queensland (Townsville based).
“If you look at an oil spill in general, an oil spill is most dangerous when the oil is first released, because the oil is made up of volatile compounds that are quite toxic, and those compounds normally evaporate over a fairly short period of time. Within a few days is when you’re likely to get the acute effects on animals, which is actually killing them directly. The oil then slowly becomes sticky and eventually forms tar, and when it forms tar it’s quite hard and mostly benign, so the effects on biota are likely to be small, so it’s more likely to be visual pollution than pollution that will affect organisms.
The 20 tonnes or so that was released, by world standards, is quite small, although clearly from the imagery that’s come out – the television footage along Stradbroke beaches and the like – it’s not attractive at all and that oil will sit on the sand for some time before it becomes collected or is weathered and effectively benign.
The effects I would predict on the flora and fauna would be as follows: there will be some acute effects on intertidal organisms, snails and the like are killed by volatiles, and on sandy beaches, some of the little sandhoppers and some of the other crustaceans. Again, that effect will dissipate quite quickly with time, so the chance of long-term effects would be extremely low for an oil spill of that size.
For some of the great oil spills we’ve had, like the Exxon Valdez, you’re talking effects that will last months and years, and that’s unlikely to be the case we have here.
Other direct effects on organisms are likely to be clogging of feathers and effects with suffocation. For birds, the volatiles remove the oil from their feathers, and that is certainly a problem for penguins, seagulls and other birds that encounter the oil and will definitely be affected. As the oil goes to tar, that won’t be a problem long-term.
There’s also likely to be some effects with the slow release material on the local plant population. Some plants may grow fast as a result of grazers like snails being killed, and other plants may even grow better as a result of some of the organic compounds from the oil.
ON TURTLES:
“I guess the turtles tend to lay their eggs at the top of the beach. If the turtles are unlucky enough for the tide to be high enough to reach the eggs along with the oil, then that may cause some problems. Eggs are porous to some extent, and they need to respire, so pouring oil over them is certainly a bad thing. The scale of the spill is unlikely to affect turtle populations over a broad area, over say tens to hundreds of kilometres.”
Dr Leonie Andersen is coordinator of the Port Curtis Integrated Monitoring Program (PCIMP) which assessed the 2006 oil spill in Gladstone when 25 tonnes was spilt. Dr Andersen is based at Vision Environment and is also Adjunct Research Fellow at CQ University’s Centre for Environmental Management.
“In comparison to the Gladstone spill, it’s fairly devastating. At least with the Gladstone spill approximately two thirds of the oil was able to be recovered – there was a lot of control whereas in this case, I don’t think they have any control. I think it’s pretty severe with the weather conditions the way they are, it’s going to spread it up and down the coast at the whim of mother nature. Instead of a being a situation where they can control and recover, it’s just going to come back to clean up, and it’s not an easy job.
“It will be interesting to see if there are funds for the cleanup, but whether there will be funds to research the actual impacts of the oil spill on those habitats, could be another matter.”
Professor Mike Kingsford is from the School of Marine and tropical Biology at James Cook University in Queensland (Townsville based).
“If you look at an oil spill in general, an oil spill is most dangerous when the oil is first released, because the oil is made up of volatile compounds that are quite toxic, and those compounds normally evaporate over a fairly short period of time. Within a few days is when you’re likely to get the acute effects on animals, which is actually killing them directly. The oil then slowly becomes sticky and eventually forms tar, and when it forms tar it’s quite hard and mostly benign, so the effects on biota are likely to be small, so it’s more likely to be visual pollution than pollution that will affect organisms.
The 20 tonnes or so that was released, by world standards, is quite small, although clearly from the imagery that’s come out – the television footage along Stradbroke beaches and the like – it’s not attractive at all and that oil will sit on the sand for some time before it becomes collected or is weathered and effectively benign.
The effects I would predict on the flora and fauna would be as follows: there will be some acute effects on intertidal organisms, snails and the like are killed by volatiles, and on sandy beaches, some of the little sandhoppers and some of the other crustaceans. Again, that effect will dissipate quite quickly with time, so the chance of long-term effects would be extremely low for an oil spill of that size.
For some of the great oil spills we’ve had, like the Exxon Valdez, you’re talking effects that will last months and years, and that’s unlikely to be the case we have here.
Other direct effects on organisms are likely to be clogging of feathers and effects with suffocation. For birds, the volatiles remove the oil from their feathers, and that is certainly a problem for penguins, seagulls and other birds that encounter the oil and will definitely be affected. As the oil goes to tar, that won’t be a problem long-term.
There’s also likely to be some effects with the slow release material on the local plant population. Some plants may grow fast as a result of grazers like snails being killed, and other plants may even grow better as a result of some of the organic compounds from the oil.
ON TURTLES:
“I guess the turtles tend to lay their eggs at the top of the beach. If the turtles are unlucky enough for the tide to be high enough to reach the eggs along with the oil, then that may cause some problems. Eggs are porous to some extent, and they need to respire, so pouring oil over them is certainly a bad thing. The scale of the spill is unlikely to affect turtle populations over a broad area, over say tens to hundreds of kilometres.”