Another toxic spill in Bass Strait. The regulator overseeing the offshore oil and methane gas industry in Australia says there is a “significant threat to the environment” in Bass Strait, after 21,000 litres of diesel leaked from an oil and methane gas platform. It’s the third recent leak from a site owned by ExxonMobil and Woodside (trading under the name Esso).
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) said in an order that: “Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd (Esso) has contravened a provision of an environmental management law and is likely to contravene that provision again.” The company failed to rectify known defects on one of its platforms which resulted in the spill.
Friends of the Earth’s Offshore Fossil Gas Campaigner, Jeff Waters, said ExxonMobile and Woodside repeatedly display a lack of respect for the Australian people and the environment we have responsibility for.
“They knew about these defects and did nothing about it, hoping to save a few more dollars at the expense of the marine environment,” he said. “Why is it that our governments continue to allow these massive multi-national companies to reap enormous profits, pay little, if any, tax, while they wring Australia’s poor dry and dump pollution in our seas.”
Meanwhile, the Federal Environment Minister is in the process of assessing an application by the Exxon company to dump tens of thousands of tonnes of contaminated but recyclable steel into Bass Strait.
Having made an enormous mess in the waterway since oil and methane extraction began in the 1960’s, they want to leave much of it behind, while towing more than a dozen multi-storey “topsides,” and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of other waste, to a site located right in the middle of the internationally listed Corner Inlet Ramsar site.
According to industry studies the topsides of the old rigs are riddled with huge amounts of asbestos, thousands of tonnes of hazardous radioactive material, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, plastics and other toxins.
They want to do this all to save money, avoiding more expensive but more responsible alternatives that the company has scoped but ruled out.
“We cannot allow Exxon’s pollution plans to go ahead,” Jeff Waters said. “It’s time governments and political parties broke away from being captured by this industry, which has grown far too powerful to be consistent with a functioning democracy.”
