Well you voted for him , so don't start crying now ..

Newman screws Gladstone Harbor

I think this will just be the beginning of huge environmental damage under the LNP ..

I didn't vote for him... thats for sure!
Voting does a fat lot of good for nothing, just so dissappointing....

Im not a violant person tho im willing to go into one of those csg places and punch out some of the people in there or even better grinades its obvious 100percent of the comunity is againsd this tho our government couldnt care less this is a world heretege area and they dont respect current an future australians is just good for overseas places but not really becouse its causing pollution while everyones tryin to cut down on polluting I hope these deamons get whats comin for them

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/cargo-ship...u-1226360919052

how long before the next one to hit the reef and cause huge environmental damage ??

There are on average 6000 ship transits on average per year so 1 breaking down isn't a bad average now is it?
See http://www.reef.crc.org.au/discover/people/facts_people.htm

The last one was in 2010 so on average that would be around 12000 transits in 2 years since the last problem. Hardly what I would call a massive increase in the rate of ships breaking down or encroaching on protected areas.

Oh and in case you forgot the big thing on the end of the chain is called an anchor and if they really really wanted to stop the ship drifting then it is quite a simple matter to wait until your in shallow wnough water for it to reach the bottom and stop it from drifting by dropping the anchor?

Whats that Skip, the anchor could also damage the reef? Guess your dammed if you do or dammed if you don't then Skip.

But without an engine they wouldn't have had the power to raise it again so thats probably why they didn't use it as they where in NO danger of hitting any reefs before the tug reached them. Just as well we have a couple of tugs located along teh coast to actually go out and do exactly what they did. I wonder why they are there anyway?

As to World Heritage Area what exactly are the benefits of having a name 99.9% of the population couldn't give a fruitbat pooh about? Oh it makes fleecing tourists easier because it is somehow special is that it? Meh.

SBT I know you like to play devils advocate on a lot of subjects, and quite often I agree with what you are saying..

1 in 6000 might not be a huge risk .
however a ship drifting around for 30 hours
is a very bad situation.

Imagine if it had hit and broken up . I don't care if its listed as world heritage or not we don't want tons of oil washing up on the beaches / reefs ..

the further north something like this happens the longer it will take to respond too.. So if it happened of the end of palm island , you could have 100's or even 1000's of people on hand to clean up , but if this happens north of cooktown it could take days to even get a few 100 people on the ground ..

Having the pacific responder based in cairns is a good start but as the shipping movements increase the risk increase. And they are increasing , some-days it feels like your stuck in traffic just trying to cross the shipping lane to get out to the reef ..

the anchor would not be powered by the main engine , a ship that size would have auxiliary engines for lights / hydraulics ect ..so it remains unclear as to what the reasons were too not drop it ..

I'm not against development outright but if we are going to do all this exporting we need to ensure that our backyard is protected from every possible risk no matter how small it might seem at the time.
Murphy go's to sea as well

cheers

I was never going to hit a reef as it was in realively open water and that is the main reason why it didn't drop anchor. It also probably didn't because it would have caused more damage if it did and it pulled off.

Look the whole protect the reef is a great idea, but fair dinkum some people need to get a grip on reality starting with the reporters that put this news story out.

Did you see the coverage last night when a reporter stated at the end of the report that "the only thing stopping destruction of the reef was a fragile cable"?

Where do they get these people from? Fragile cable? The bloody thing is designed to drag 100's of 1000's of tons of ship not pull your wannabe AWD out of a soft spot on your front lawn. It is this very reporting slant where anything that might have a minute Green impact will get the shrillest coverage.

I find the lack of general knowledge of so called reporters and journalists frightening because they spread bullshit disguised as a news report and people believe them as facts. Did the reporter contact teh tug owner? Did they ask a simple question like "What size is the cable and can it do the job"?

No, instead they further beat up the story by stating the cable is fragile and could further endanger the tissue box reef which will be forever damnaged if a ship runs into it.

Heaven help us if they ever find out that the RAAF still uses part of the reef for target practice with real bombs, or that during WWII a US Submarine ran aground and the 190 tons of fuel oil was released after it too was bombed to stop it falling into Jap hands there by releasing that oil, or that oil exploration companies in the 1960s drilled hundreds of test holes looking for oil or the navy used to be tasked to keep navigation gaps in the reef open by using explosives destroy chunks of the reef to clear channels.

Your average cat 3 cyclone does more damage to the reef than any number of ships running into it.

Someone has to be a devils advocate because my world is going to hell in a hand basket one bullshit news story at a time.