License to spill

Bond author Ian Fleming would have struggled to plot a thriller more mysterious than the Montara H1 blow-out that continues to pour at least 400 barrels of oil into the Timor Sea every day off the Northwest coast of Western Australia.

Here we are 74 days on from an accident that has been described as one of Australia's worst oil spills and the lack of information from the company responsible, and our own government is breathtaking.

What caused the catastrophic failure?

Why did it take four weeks to even begin trying to stop the flow?

Why didn't the government send a boat to examine the affect of the oil on wildlife until after WWF had already done so?

What would happen if one of the many other wells that pincushion the Northwest were to suffer a similar blow-out?

And most recently the questions have come full circle and returned to exactly how much oil is really spilling from the wellhead after the company's guesswork was questioned in a senate hearing.

What we do know is that in the three days that WWF was in the area it encountered hundreds of animals in contact with the spill. Some of these included 202 spinner dolphins, 72 sea snakes, 176 sooty terns and two species of turtles listed as threatened with extinction under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. We also know that bird deaths have been reported.

At points in the voyage the vessel was surrounded by oil on every side right to the horizon. Fifty nautical miles from the source of the leak, an hour or so from the Jabiru shoals, the thick smell of the fumes forced the vessel to retreat.

These eyewitness accounts challenge those in government who are saying that the spill will have minimal affect on the marine environment. How baseless and utterly misleading these statements are. It's like standing outside a burning building and saying that the furniture will be okay. Satellite images show the spill is still spreading, like a huge environmental scar.

The Kimberley coast, its islands and this remarkable area of the Timor Sea are unlike anywhere else in Australia or the world. This marine wonderland houses the world's largest humpback nursery, reefs that are a match for, and in many places surpass, the most pristine areas of the Great Barrier Reef, and a blue water superhighway that acts as a migration channel for whales, whale sharks and turtles.

All this has been preserved because the area is so remote that we have yet to make our mark on this magnificent region.

It would have remained almost untouched if not for the discovery of oil and natural gas. With such heavy industry comes the threat of environmental degradation.

Australians need to know that the distant marine environment off the coast of Northwest Australia is a unique, environmental jewel that has been preserved in part simply because it is so remote. Sadly, that distance could also spell its demise.

The companies and authorities concerned with this spill seem to want it to remain out of sight and out of mind.

There is no doubt that had this spill occurred on the east coast of Australia, it would be front page news and the fury of the Australian public would be unabated. Undoubtedly, those fundamental questions still awaiting a response would have been answered long ago and a rescue rig and teams of scientists and wildlife carers would have been on the scene in hours.

However, because so few people can even see the results of this spill, the devastating effects on the environment struggle to make the news.

Now that the heavy footprint of oil and gas exploration is obvious for all to see, and with new acreage for exploration being released, we need measures in place to protect our rare and remarkable marine habitats.

Our government must create a network of marine protected areas and enforce their preservation through legislation. Areas of outstanding natural value need to be off limits in terms of where companies can drill.

A full inquiry needs to tighten operational and regulatory legislation, to ensure a Montara type disaster never occurs again. This includes improving the standards for contingency plans so that Australians will not have to wait four weeks to even begin plugging a leak of this scale.

The fossil fuel reserves in this region are set to bring the companies that invest here billions of dollars in profits. It would be a crime well beyond that found in any Bond novel if this generation lost one of its great environmental assets through unbridled industrialisation.

It's time our government and the wealthy companies exploiting our mineral resources acknowledged the natural wildlife assets of this region and started to preserve the environment for all Australians.