{"id":516111,"date":"2010-04-05T12:23:19","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T16:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenrightnow.com\/?p=10411"},"modified":"2010-04-05T12:23:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T16:23:19","slug":"oil-spill-threatens-australia%e2%80%99s-great-barrier-reef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/516111","title":{"rendered":"Oil spill threatens Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Green Right Now Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n

An oil spill created when a coal-carrying Chinese vessel grounded on Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef <\/a>poses a\u00a0 threat to the world\u2019s largest coral reef, home to thousands of marine species.<\/p>\n

\"Australia's<\/p>\n

Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Image: greatbarrierreef.org<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Shen Neng I went aground at Douglas Shoals over the weekend. By Monday, about two tons of oil had spilled from the 1,000 tons on board, creating a 100-yard slick stretching over about two miles.<\/p>\n

Queensland State Premier Anna Bligh announced plans to place a boom around the ship to contain the spill, while aircraft sprayed chemical dispersants to break up the slick.<\/p>\n

“It’s in such a delicate part of the reef and the ship is in such a badly damaged state, managing this process will require all the specialist expertise we can bring to bear,” Bligh told reporters in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

The ship’s owner, Shenzhen Energy<\/a>, could be fined up to 1 million Australian dollars ($920,000) after the vessel strayed from a shipping lane used by 6,000 cargo vessels each year. Authorities fear the ship will break apart during the salvage operation and wreck more coral and spill more oil.<\/p>\n

“One of the most worrying aspects is that the ship is still moving on the reef to the action of the seas, which is doing further damage,” said Patrick Quirk, General Manager of Marine Safety Queensland.<\/p>\n

Maritime law specialist Michael White of the University of Queensland said oil is the major environmental threat posed by the grounding, adding that coal could do “considerable localized damage” but would dissipate quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Green Right Now Reports An oil spill created when a coal-carrying Chinese vessel grounded on Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef poses a\u00a0 threat to the world\u2019s largest coral reef, home to thousands of marine species. Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Image: greatbarrierreef.org The Shen Neng I went aground at Douglas Shoals over the weekend. By Monday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-516111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}