NO OIL for SOUTH WEST BEACHES is a community campaign protesting the Federal Government’s decision to issue oil and gas exploration licenses for Mentelle Basin, 85km offshore from Margaret River. Self funded, and staffed by volunteers, the passion and commitment of the group demonstrate our depth of feeling about our priceless beaches and coastline being put at risk, and our commitment to prevent that from happening.

Convened in May 2010 after the announcement to offer the ‘Soul of the South West’ to the oil and gas industry, the campaign has around 11,500 mail list members, ‘likes’ and friends on social media. Since our inception we’ve succeeded in raising awareness of the threat from deep-sea offshore oil drilling to the marine environment and food-web, established use, public amenity, regional planning trajectory, and the future commercial viability of the South West Capes coast.

As well as representing concerned citizen’s voices in the region, we’re allianced with the Conservation Council Western Australia, and the Surfrider Foundation.

Our campaign has been covered by ABC News (National), ABC 7:30 Report (National), ABC Radio (National), Channel 7 News, WIN TV, Al Jazeera English, RTR FM, 6PR, The West Australian, The Australian, The South West Times, and surfing magazines and online articles and blogs. We are often prominent stories, and are covered regularly in the local papers, The Mail and the Times.
The Group has held public rallies around the Margaret River area, with attendance from 300 to 1000 (in a township of only 6000 people). As well, we have carried out many community protest actions, meetings and fundraisers. Our representatives have had face to face meetings with local councilors, State Government ministers, Federal Ministers and Prime Minister Gillard.

Nola Marino, Greg Hunt, Troy Buswell, Barry House, and Peter Garrett (when Minister for Environment), and Tony Burke have been briefed.

Our objections to the establishment of a deep-sea offshore oil and gas industry off the south west region are many.

There have already been two catastrophic accidents in what are supposed to be amongst the best regulated countries in the world; America (Deepwater Horizon 2010) and Australia. (Montara 2009). The previous Minister for the Environment Peter Garrett is on film on the 7.30 Report stating that there is no such thing as no risk. Add to that the obvious: that it’s not possible to legislate or regulate the humanity out of humans. Therein lies the potential for a catastrophe as soon as work commences.

The chances of a serious accident like a wellhead blowout are often quoted as ‘one in a million’. What this ‘formula’ fails to make clear is that an accident may not happen on the millionth day, but could happen on the first day. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe happened as the well was being opened. It wasn’t even in production.

Deepwater Horizon pumped some five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing widespread contamination of the states of America. Montara only spilled an estimated 1.2 million to 9 million gallons into the Timor Sea, but flowed for 8 weeks until a rig could be brought south from Indonesia to drill a relief well. That took five attempts, and on the last (and finally successful) intercept, the Montara platform caught fire.

The prospect target of the Mentelle Basin is in depths up to 4500m, almost double that of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. What was demonstrated there was the fact that exploration technology has far out paced advances in accident control, salvage, and remedial technology. Furthermore, such extreme depths make ‘fixing’ a major problem exponentially more complicated and difficult, if successful. At Deepwater Horizon BP took 86 days to stop a well blowout that would have probably needed only one week if it had been on land.

Clearly this is a risky business, and not a science. As each formation is different, especially at such great depth, there are many factors that cannot be known. The learning curve is steep, and the risks are getting greater and greater the more the ‘easy oil’ around the planet is exhausted. We believe that the potential risks, effects and costs to the environment must be factored into a cost benefit analysis, before any work is undertaken (including exploration work) not simply ‘calculated away’ as is currently done when assessing risk.

We believe Emergency Response Planning for the offshore oil industry in Australia is wholly inadequate, especially in our very deep prospects. This was made clear by the fact that a rig to drill a relief well during the Montara blowout took months to arrive from Indonesia. Only a deepwater rig has any chance of drilling a relief intercept in a deepwater prospect. The Mentelle Basin is about as far away from all other fields (and relief rigs) as it’s possible to be in Australia, which considerably increases the risk factor of environmental damage from an uncontrolled well blowout.

There could be no guarantee that a relief rig with the power and capability to drill a relief well, should there be a problem with the main rig, other than if companies were legislated to have such capability standing by (at enormous cost). That could result in many months of uncontrolled flow in the case of a well blowout, were the Mentelle Basin be explored.

Because of the rough weather and big swells on the South West Coast, there is a very real problem of where to base the support and service hub of an oil industry off the South West. Should a major oil and gas industry become established in Mentelle Basin’s 13,360km2, such a hub would need to be sufficiently large to base equipment, personel, emergency response vessels, repair and possibly relief rigs or rigs in for maintenance or repair. Where could this possibly be located on the South West coast?

In the event of spills emergency response plans usually involve the use of dispersants, which are for commonly made with proprietary formulae which are not disclosed under commercial confidentiality legislation. The cocktail created when oil and dispersants mix is generally believed to result in multiples of toxicity compared to the individual constituents themselves. Industry prevents true analysis of this by withholding information about the constituent ingredients.

Oil is fatally toxic to marine life at a proportion as little as 1 part per million. Oil mixed with certain dispersants not only sinks the oils where it kills and putrifies the seabed (and lower orders of the food web such as grasses, sponges and molluscs), but increases and compounds its toxicity.

One major well blowout, such as the Deepwater Horizon or Montara catastrophes could render the beaches from Lancelin to Esperance toxic for generations. There is no agreed safe limit for exposure to the hazardous chemicals in hydrocarbons, such as benzene, xylene, and toluene. This is particularly true when ingested through contaminated seafood, or exposure to large areas of uncovered skin, as most of us are when on the beach. That effect is exacerbated in summer when hydrocarbons mobilise in the heat, and people spent more time on the beach with less clothing on.

The prevailing weather in the South West, is from the south west. Consequently any debris and spillage has a greatly increased risk of making landfall on the beaches from Margaret River to Lancelin, obviously including Perth. According to CSIRO modelling, in the event of a major oil spill the Leeuwin Current and back currents are highly likely to deposit oil on the beaches as far north as Lancelin, down the coast through Perth and the beaches of the major population centres through Margaret River, then around the Cape and on to Albany, Denmark and Esperance.

As part of the federal government’s national marine protection plans , there are plans for two areas near Margaret River. We believe that having an oil and gas industry off further offshore than the proposed protected areas makes a mockery of having inshore protection areas. The contaminants from a well blowout or serious accident would not respect the boundaries of any inshore protection zone if prevailing weather was toward land.

If a major accident occurred in winter the prevailing weather would make cleaning up even more difficult than conventional cleanups. If it were in summer the risk of hydrocarbon and dispersant evaporating and being carried inland is greatly increased. As well as vapour fallout onto inland cropping areas, there would be increased risk of condensates being precipitated as toxic rain. Where this falls is of course largely uncontrollable, even if it is mappable.

In view of what climate scientists and the Government Climate Commission say on the need to reduce carbon emissions, it’s logical that we need to reduce our burning of fossil fuels. President Obama even is on record as saying we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. It’s been suggested by sources in the petroleum industry that the prospect of commercial quantities of oil in the Mentelle Basin is not very high. Better to spend whatever money or tax breaks that would need to be spent opening up such a poor prospect on renewable energy technologies.

As a relatively young industry, there is no knowledge whatsoever about what happens to the subsurface (mainly steel and concrete grout) infrastructure once a well is exhausted. We know that steel and salt water react rapidly, and judging from the rate of decay on sunken steel ships it would be easy to imagine the steel well casings and top structures rusting out within a hundred years after being abandoned. Even entombment would still leave a steel casing that could rust out over time, leaving future generations with an uncontrollable and unknown risk into the indefinite future. And no grout or concrete can be guaranteed to plug a well forever without deterioration. Who will take the overall responsibility of all leaks, seeps and decay of all wells for all time?

Considering the hostile conditions and depth of the prospect, industry currently considers the risk of investment too high. This position is borne out by the fact that no bids for the Mentelle Basin Release Area were received from industry by the May 12, 2011 deadline.
For the low prospectivity, and the multiplied higher risk because of depth and region’s harsh weather, we recommend that the Mentelle Basin oil release area, plus a twenty kilometer buffer around the perimeter to stop lateral drilling, be removed from the risk of oil exploration and ceded to Marine Sanctuary. We believe that to be the only way of permanently preserving and protecting the coast and marine environment of the South West of Australia.

There is a generational opportunity to protect and preserve what we believe is a critical resource, not only for the residents of the region, but visitors to the region both Australian and International. The health and wellbeing of many Western Australians is directly linked to and affected by their proximity to a healthy coastal zone. All beach and ocean based activities from walking the dog, through riding a bike along the foreshore paths, to swimming surfing, jogging, fishing depend on a healthy uncontaminated environment.

We ask to have the Mentelle Basin fully protected from the oil and gas industry, if necessary by being ceded to Marine Sanctuary. We are agree with and fully support the Conservation Council WA’s position on Marine Sanctuaries, in particular the inclusion of the Mentelle Basin prospect.

Thanks you for your consideration of our submission

Rob Alder
NO OIL for SW BEACHES