The additional leak in the Timor sea, sourced to ABC/NT Govt, is essentially a distraction. Information sourced to the NT Govt and known for many weeks by govt seems designed to suggest ‘see it happens elsewhere, not just West Atlas/Montara, and it’s no big deal’. The continual quotes of ‘only 400 barrels a day’ when the company PTTEP admits themselves there is ‘no scientific basis for measuring the flow rate’, is laughable spin. Along with the helpful link to Chris Uhlmann’s piece same page today’s date ‘in praise of climate sceptics - quoting Karl Poppor - a science philosopher I mentioned first here on Crikey lists.

The best independent advice we have in the public domain is ‘up to 2000 barrels a day’ sourced to Geo Science Australia from the Senate Estimtes on 21st October.

It’s about time the big knobs at the ABC and ALP Govt got real about our own Exxon Valdez disaster.

Update:

Senator Siewert is holding a presser today over in Perth along with a community protest of some sort.

“Once applied the oil particles are then divided and separated forming a readily degradable microscopic emulsion.” from sales info .

Vincent asked (above) for more depth of info, too, so there are at least a few of us who appreciate good research in articles.

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S12500.pdf

It seems to download for me best on explorer not firefox.

Senator SIEWERT—In terms of the amount of oil that was previously and is now coming out of the well,
have you had any discussions with the company about what that rate is? They have said publicly what it is, or
speculated in fact. Have you had a discussion with them about that?

Mr Squire - There is a figure in the media of 300 to 400 barrels a day. The view of the department is that it
is difficult without access to the rig to quantify what that rate of flow is.

Senator SIEWERT—That is significantly different from the production figures that the company itself had
said would be coming from that well when it was in production.

Mr Squire—That is correct.

Senator SIEWERT—I presume through the regulatory process you have been provided with flow data
from that well and similar wells in the area.

Mr Squire—You are correct to say that the estimated rate of flow is far less than what the well would be
producing if it were in production. We certainly do have information about potential flow rates when those
wells were drilled as production wells.

Senator SIEWERT—Did you do any calculations yourself on the potential flow rates? Initially there was
an absence of company advice on what the potential flow rates were. Did you do any calculations yourselves
to estimate what the flow rates could be?

Mr Squire—Yes, we did.

Senator SIEWERT—And what were they?

Mr Squire—The information that we sought from Geoscience Australia was an estimation of what the rate
of flow would be if that well was entirely unsealed, for want of a better expression.

Senator SIEWERT—And what were they? What was that rate?

Mr Squire—The maximum leakage rate from that well could be as much as 2,000 barrels of oil a day, with
condensate as well.

Senator SIEWERT—That is in addition?

Mr Squire—In addition to oil.

Senator SIEWERT—Is it possible for you to table the basis on which those figures were calculated?

Mr Squire—We should be able to provide you information concerning the testing of that well when it was
drilled as a production well.

Senator SIEWERT—That would be much appreciated, if you could. In terms of the Timor Sea in general
and oil and gas exploration and production in the Timor Sea, it has been suggested to me in the past that there
have been several other potential incidents that never in fact eventuated because there was good contingency
planning in place. Have those sorts of incidents ever been reported to the department? …….

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/22/2721552.htm?site=local

This is fast becoming a Media Watch feature.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,26245407-2761,00.html?from=public_rss

Well this will make you more grumpy champ.

ABC tv news update adjusted their phrasing after a well aimed email from moi quoting Estimates evidence 21 Oct. Their 9.30 bulletin added in “an estimated 400 barrels a day”.

But this is still misleading and deceptive based on company spin, not the federal Dept of Env relying on Geo Science Australia assessment of the facts known to date.

How the ABC can parrot a conflicted company already proven a wrongdoer, and then abandoned in the conservative press by the rest of the industry (The Australian) is an interesting case study in potential ABC bias to a corporation, and to a badly exposed federal ALP environment minister Peter Garrett???

The Senate call for govt papers is due by Nov 16. The ABC news machine are also under pressure now over the real scale of this disaster. Is it 1/10 the infamous Exxon Valdez or already 1/2 the size of infamous Exxon Valdez? And why would you possibly rely on PTTEP already bleeding 1$150M in costs to fix their f*ck up, when it might be $1B dollar disaster? Or even more?

Come on ABC, starting quoting the Hansard evidence of October 21st, which was already subject of an ABC report at the time about Oct 21-22. Tsk tsk.

‘Devastated’ and ‘Decimated’… these words are used as blunt weapons by the converted… they are the cliches of the conversation. Check the dictionary. Devastate means destroy… decimate: cut by one in every ten. The words don’t work so don’t use them. They suggest you are just frothing at the mouth.

Oh yes… oil under the water? Dissolved? Emulsified? Evil little self-propelled globes, remote piloted by Exon execs? What?

Don’t write to be cheered by the bros. and sisters. Write for an indifferent, even an hostile, audience… the converted are already on board.

Vincent O’Donnell
Ascot Vale

Sure, but nothing else is, including the scale, so we really have no context for placing the image in our mental maps. You could at least have linked it to a higher resolution version or the original.

Bloody hell, surely it’s time to fly in some actual expertise!

ABC TV 7 pm news regretably parroted the 400 barrels figure without noting it was company spin at all.

Today in the Senate Rachel Siewert MP succeeded in obtaining a motion for the Govt to release relevant documents by November 16 2009. We will find out the truth one way or the other eventually. And the entity with the huge financial conflict of interest being the oil company is not my Melbourne cup bet.

To provide some detail that corroborates Andrew’s piece, I can pass on this information from Mark Simmonds, WDCS International Director of Science:
“Crude and other oils are mixtures of a great many organic compounds many of which are toxic, and animals can ingest oil-derived compounds either directly from the water or with their food. Poisonous vapours can also be inhaled and especially as the more volatile components evaporate into the air from freshly spilled oil”
“Regrettably, whales and dolphins are unlikely to avoid oils spills and the more extensive the spill, the greater the encounter rate is likely to be. There will also be chronic effects of oil entering food-chains. Much of this is going to happen far away from the human eye and if marine animals are killed or otherwise affected, we are unlikely to be witness to this. All of this further explains the need to keep fossil fuel plants out of important wildlife areas.”
http://www.wdcs.org

And, from AMSA:
“Oil, depending upon its form and chemistry, causes a range of physiological and toxic effects.
For example, the low molecular weight aliphatics of oil can have anaesthetic properties and aromatic components such as benzine are known carcinogens and very toxic to humans and wildlife. Some polynuclear aromatics are also carcinogenic and toxic and, are concentrated in the food chain eg. in tissues of water filter feeding shell fish like mussels and oysters.
… The eggs, larvae and young fish are comparatively sensitive to oil (particularly dispersed oil), as demonstrated in laboratory toxicity tests. … Reports also suggest that some fish species do not avoid oil but are actually attracted to oil because it resembles “floating objects”.”
http://www.amsa.gov.au

While AMSA does not speak to tuna specifically, having worked on tuna issues for many, many years, I can assure you tuna are species that are attracted to floating objects.

We don’t know how deep the slick is, becasue the information is not being released. We don’t know how much oil has been spilled, becasue the information is not being released. We don’t know what harm the dispersant have done, becasue the information is not being released.

And, if you are now bored (as I expect you are), perhaps you can reflect then why such information wasn’t part of Andrew’s excellent story!

Are you insane? That first satellite image is unreadable!

Perhaps you meant “Crikey’s graphics department, who along with this article’s author, is on crack,…”

The two images show no connection with each other, the distance between the oil and the spawning zone being as far apart as European countries. Nothing “eerie”about that. If there is a drift, please measure and quote it to your intelligent lay readers.

You could have asked some experts and then told us what oil does to the seawater just below the surface. For example, are there enough soluble toxic compounds in the slick to threaten fish in the near surface zone?

If there really are “experts on the ground” in the Timor Sea, we want to know who they are, and what they say about the sensitivities of fish assembling to mate, how tuna spawn in the open ocean and the sensitivity of the spawn itself.

Who is it that have raised what concern over “other fish species”? I was under the impression that the snapper spawn on the continental slope, far below any oil slick. Whale sharks don’t come up for air and are big enough to dive under and swim past any oil slick, so how would they be affected?

Similarly, the oilmen’s jargon is useless to us, whereas a quick conversion would tell us that oil is leaking at about 60 kL a day.

Come on Crikey!

PS: Er, did you really mean “a multi-million tourism industry in WA”?

“Yesterday (Wed 21/10/09), under questioning by Greens’ Marine Issues Spokesperson Senator Rachel Siewert, Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism officials said that PTTEP had given them no basis for their 400-barrels-day figure, and their own calculations based on Geoscience Australia data suggested a rate of around 2,000 barrels-a-day, plus condensate.”

Notice too News Corp broadsheet The Australian runs this story yesterday showing dissension now in the industry sector on the north west shelf:

“Industry lashes oil-spill firm
Nicolas Perpitch | October 28, 2009

AUSTRALIA’S peak oil and gas body has turned on one of its own, saying established safeguards exist to prevent oil-well blowouts and the disastrous West Atlas spill in the Timor Sea should never have happened. …..[continues]”

Senator Siewart at Estimates October 21 evoked from a Dept of Environment official that the rate of flow from the blowout was 2,000 barrels a day, NOT 400.

This was so important as industry and govt backgrounded agianst The Greens to Laurie Oakes resulting in national press she was exaggerating back on Sept 4th 2009. But Oakes was wrong. Siewart was vindicated as per the evidence and presser from that Oct 21-22, 2009.

At 2000 barrels a day we are talking 2000 x 70 days (since August 19th) x 42 US gallons to the barrell, some 5,880,000 gallons of oil spill.

The Exxon Valdez as quoted by wikipedia was 10.8 million gallons.

Yesterday early we broadcast to that effect with chronology to all federal and NSW parliament a link explaining how Minister Garrett in particular, and for his master PM Rudd, operating a PR diversion the global scale disaster West Altas/Montara has become. (By the way most of the press via google seem to refer to it as West Altas).

Refer also last Monday, and Tuesday Crikey and ABC Unleashed for backgrounders on this, with robust string of comments on each.

I have often wondered how it is that the oil and gas industry is able to maintain the veneers that their operations are worlds best practice in the face of regular spills around the Australian coastline; and that the Government (of each political leaning) persist with the claim that they are responsibly regulating.

Last week the Government and industry released their joint monitoring programme – a good six weeks after the spill started. Even a cursory read of document reveals how much baseline information has to be gathered, which begs the question why was this not collected before the drilling began?

There is no mention of monitoring any impacts to Indonesian ecosystems, and not surprising no mention of tuna. The document also makes unsubstantiated statements that impacts of the oil spill on marine animals ‘remain unlikely’.

The document claims that experts have been consulted, so why then does civil society need to remind policy makers that marine animals can ingest oil-derived toxic compounds either directly from the water or with their food. That poisonous vapor can also be inhaled by whales and dolphins and especially when the volatile components evaporate into the air from freshly spilled oil.

With anywhere from 10 to 20 million litres of oil spilled into the ocean it is a good bet that there will be chronic longer-term effects of oil entering the food-chain potentially affecting the whole system. Much of this will happen far from sight and if marine animals are killed or otherwise affected – days, months and years into the future – we are unlikely to be witness to this.

None of this information is particularly ground breaking nor new. We have know most of this information for a few decades. Why then is this not openly admitted? And more to the point why is it that there is minimal public (and media) concern?