Spraying over oil spill.

[TexanPilot]

Just saw the news article about the Chinese ship grounded and leaking oil. There was footage of what looks like an 802 spraying. Anyone know what it is they are spraying?

Just curious....

[Hasherucf]

Oil dispersant ?

[toolowtoofast]

the same stuff those big jets spray from way up high so we all forget about the UFOs we saw?

[VH-XXX]

Yes, oil dispersant.

[Daysleeper]

Admittedly it's been a few years since I did it but the dispersants then were great for crude but ineffective against heavy fuel oil which is probably what this ship is leaking. That said I'm not sure what 60K ton of coal will do!

[VH-XXX]

It's the 950 tonnes of oil on board that's going to do the damage.

[Tarq57]

Just superb, isn't it? :ugh:
Only 15km outside the shipping lane, too. As if the poor planet didn't have enough to try and deal with. :(
I hope the reef is more resilient than recent worrying reports tend to indicate.

[muddergoose]

It was reported in the media within the last week China has surpassed Japan as our leading trading partner.

[neville_nobody]

Yeah imagine if we missed a waypoint by 15km!!:rolleyes: How hard is it in this day and age anyway? He would have at least had GPS.

[Chimbu chuckles]

As if the poor planet didn't have enough to try and deal with.
I hope the reef is more resilient than recent worrying reports tend to indicate.

Oh come on:rolleyes: - if there is a spill, even a big one, on 'the reef' the tiny proportion actually effected will be in greater danger from the clean up than the oil. Have you ever actually seen 'the reef'? Its HUGE - thousands of reefs over hundreds of 1000s of square nm constantly being replenished of polyps from other reefs further out in the Pacific/PNG etc.

The Great barrier Reef is not fragile.

[compressor stall]

Love the comment on the ABC yesterday:

"Investigators say that the ship that ran aground shouldn't have been where it was".

No sh!t Sherlock!

[K3nnyboy]

HAHA....i thought such comment would only appears in the Daily Telegraph~~ :}

[mattyj]

what happens to the man who polluted one of the seven natural wonders of the world back in homeland China..doesn't bear thinking about..still though pollution is par for the course over there :ooh:

[mickjoebill]

what happens to the man who polluted one of the seven natural wonders of the world back in homeland China.

Gets a kick up the backside for not cloning harvesting or planting a flag on it....


Mickjoebill

[18-Wheeler]

Yeah imagine if we missed a waypoint by 15km!!

Ah, you've never used a Delco Carousel then. :)
I've been nearly 30nm off-track after going nine hours without an update across the Pacific. There was a pretty big heading change when we finally got a couple of DME's off LA.

[SM227]

Anyonw know who was doing the spraying?

[Flying Binghi]

I hope the reef is more resilient than recent worrying reports tend to indicate

What happened to the reef during WW2 ? ...oil slicks everywhere from what ah hear. Plus, what about all the other reef ship wrecks since fuel oil has been used ?

Clean up the mess, tho no need to get hysterical about it... :hmm:




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[GA_FATMAN]

Anyonw know who was doing the spraying?


Operator from Emerald has the contract. Thrush based on 24/7 call.

[Tarq57]

Cc, yes, I've seen the reef. Part of it, anyway. Snorkeled on it, spent the day there, and listened to marine biologists talking about what is currently causing concern. (Marine biologists who were there, and also subsequently, on various documentaries. I don't believe all of them are crying "wolf".)

Things ain't what they were, apparently, years ago, when a pollution event -although horrid - did only temporary damage. I don't remember all the details, but many different ongoing events, including water temperature change, the slowing of the currents, overfishing, and increase of UV light, are collectively and cumulatively, having quite a bad effect on the reef's health.

I was led to believe that although it is not fragile, it is, in our time, in fairly worrying trouble.

A bit like some cancers. By the time the symptoms become obvious, it may be already too late.

[Flying Binghi]

Whats the name of the reefs halfway between Oz and NZ where all them wrecked ships are parked. Think it were Ben Cropp who did a doco out there diving amoungst all the wrecks on the pristine reefs. No mention of any oil cleanups out there...


Edit; found a ref - "...at least 32 vessels are known to have been wrecked on the reefs; 17 on Middleton Reef and 13 on Elizabeth Reef. Some authorities believe the real figure may be as high as 90..." Considering the small size and isolation of these reefs its probably a good study of what happens to a reef after a shipwreck. Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve - Home Page (http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/mpa/elizabeth/index.html)


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[OZBUSDRIVER]

I've been nearly 30nm off-track after going nine hours without an update across the Pacific. There was a pretty big heading change when we finally got a couple of DME's off LA.

Hey 18 wheeler, the Fork Tail Doc may have few spare GPS units that'll fix that problem for ya!

And on that regard. 30nm off after some 4000nm....not bad shootin, pard:ok:

EDIT TO ADD- in the same comparison, if 18wheeler was piloting said carrier they would be less than 2000ft off course for a similar error.

[patienceboy]

Yeah imagine if we missed a waypoint by 15km!!:rolleyes:

And that would be the equivalent of 15km off track during an instrument approach below MSA!

[Aye Ess]

Love the comment on the ABC yesterday:

"Investigators say that the ship that ran aground shouldn't have been where it was".


Similarly, whenever an aeroplane crashes....''preliminary investigations reveal the aircraft was flying too low in the area where the accident occured''

[aussiefan]

I heard an ABC report, at the start they had someone saying that the planned route was okay to use, they then waffled on for a while, then they had the 'exclusive' from a fishing charter operator saying that he has seen shipping use the route, on several occaisions.
Wow, so this guy has actually seen ships using a shipping route? amazing....

[Flying Binghi]

Walter Starck with some interesting comments -

About once in a decade a ship runs aground somewhere on the Great Barrier Reef. Although this has never resulted in other than trivial damage to the reef, a three ring media circus always unfolds. Politicians posture in mock displays of righteous anger or feigned concern. Environmentalists emote predictions of dire consequences. Bureaucrats blather about protocols and procedures. Various “experts” exude impressive displays of ignorance. Sundry “stakeholders” slither forth declaring an interest in something they have never seen, have nothing invested and know nothing about. Although somewhat predictable, this farce remains perennially popular.
A performance cycle usually runs for several weeks ending in a.... continues - Quadrant Online - Farce on the Reef (http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/04/farce-on-the-reef)




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[Worrals in the wilds]

This voter is getting heartily sick of Anna and Co. being flown around the state to gawk at disasters. Any time there's a head on collision you get Anna in one chopper, Kevvy in another and three busloads of spin and makeup people along for the show :ugh:.

Apparently the Moreton Bay oil spill clean up costs blew out in a huge way due to the number of beauracrats and hangers on that demanded to be 'on the scene' and were either put up in splendour (well, sort of splendour :}) at Tangalooma resort or taken to and fro in helicopters. Second hand info, but it was from a person involved in the clean up.

In general, a little more science and a little less PR spin would be both welcome and unexpected from the current Qld government.

[mickk]

The problem is that coral doenst grow back after severe damage.

To cut a long story short, have a look at Truk on google earth, where channels were gouged and blasted in WW2. Id expect the Chinese ship to have gouged huge sections out of the reef and pulverised the rest it came into contact with.

Its sad to think of how unguarded and unmonitored our coast line is. Theres 36000k of it, we need a coast guard.

[Chimbu chuckles]

mickk I have dived Truk and all over PNG - dived MANY reef passes that were created by the use of explosives during WW2 - yes the reef pass doesn't 'grow back' in a human life time although it will on longer time scales - but the coral that forms the sides of the reef pass is anything but dead. And do you think they blew out a passage from solid coral or widened a natural existing passage? I can assure you it was the later.

I have seen huge brain corals terribly damaged by vandals carving their name/date into them and gone back a year later and the damage is repaired - we swam around certain we had the right coral formation but unable to see ANY evidence.

Its a stupid analogy anyway - a ship running aground is nothing like VAST amounts of high explosive blasting a passage through a reef 100+ feet deep and 1/2nm wide.

A better comparison would be what Truk Lagoon looked like after the US finished wiping out the Jap fleet there in 1945, a real mess that was NEVER even looked at from an ecological damage point of view. Never any attempt made to clean up all the oil spilled from bombed ships laying on the bottom - and now its a pristine environment with numerous 'artificial reefs' covered in colourful corals and teeming with fish.

By 1950 you'd have been hard pressed to see any signs of the battles of 1945 from a boat crossing the lagoon. Oil spills are an ecological non event but a political opportunity that cannot be missed.