Massive oil spill off Australian coast puts marine life at risk

Discussion in 'Environmental' started by Matt Rogers, Oct 26, 2009.

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  1. Matt Rogers

    Matt Rogers Kingfish

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    Oil has been spewing out of this rig since last August and they still haven't fixed it. :p
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    On August 21st, oil started leaking from an offshore oil well 125 miles offshore from Western Australia's Kimberley Coast, pouring barrels a day into the Timor Sea. Thai-based PTTEP Australasia, the company that owns the well, made three attempts to plug the well, but still the oil kept spilling. As of Friday, a fourth attempt to plug the well failed and it was still leaking somewhere between 400 and 2,000 barrels of oil per day. Have you heard of this before now? I only heard of this over the weekend though it's been going on for weeks now. Why is it not bigger news?
    WWF-Australia ran an expedition to survey the area in what's called the Montara oil spill, and what they found looked grim. Dolphins, fish, seabirds, sea snakes, sea turtles and other marine animals have been exposed to toxic chemicals, and some are dying. A recent satellite image of the spill found it stretched for over one hundred miles and is closer to the coast that previously reported so now beaches may be at risk as well as the offshore area which the WWF-Australia survey shows is rich with marine life.
    "We spent three days surveying in the remote Timor Sea in the area of the slick, and it was literally sickening to see all this oil on the water and to see dolphins surfacing amongst it," said WWF-Australia’s Conservation Director Gilly Llewellyn, who was part of the expedition to the spill site. "If this was happening off the beaches of Sydney, then there would be global outrage, but because it is literally out of sight, then it seems to be out of mind."


    Massive oil spill off Australian coast puts marine life at risk - Animal News: Animal Planet
     
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  3. swagger87

    swagger87 Zoanthid

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    OMG how terrible! I can't believe that Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Spears's latest failures are top priority rather than something really important like this!
     
  4. Matt Rogers

    Matt Rogers Kingfish

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    Heh. Yeah. Well people respond to videos, so maybe this will help. :-[

     
  5. swagger87

    swagger87 Zoanthid

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    My god. I couldn't even finish the whole video, though I know I should. Thingslike this make me sick to my stomach. I'm no tree hugger or anything, but when I see what people allow to happen to the only inhabitable planet we have I can't help but feel outraged.
     
  6. bama

    bama Humpback Whale

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    I really dislike this
     
  7. Matt Rogers

    Matt Rogers Kingfish

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  9. Matt Rogers

    Matt Rogers Kingfish

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  10. Matt Rogers

    Matt Rogers Kingfish

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