Cover-up in the Channel Country?

Map from Santos website

There’s been a major oil spill at a Santos field in South West Queensland.

About 300 barrels of oil a day over five days on were lost by the time the leak was stopped. Total spillage amounted to around 240,000 litres of oil.

The spill occurred at Santos's Zeus field, out from Eromanga.

I’ve never been out as far as Eromanga, but have worked in Thargomindah, Eulo and Yowah, which are not far away, and the same kind of country.

In this country, when it floods, the water makes ribbons across the soil, and takes whatever is in the soil with it. There are also pristine lakes out there.

It was fortunate the spill didn’t happen during the floods that were around in 2010 and 2011. That was just dumb luck.

The story is not the leak – it’s the cover-up.

I heard about it on Radio National breakfast. There was also a report on our local South Queensland 747 AM network.

Apart from the Sunshine Coast Daily, it hasn’t appeared anywhere on-line, and a search of the Courier Mail website, and the Australian revealed nothing.

Obviously, Santos has done a good job of keeping it quiet. They refused interviews for the ABC, and have released no press statement on their website.

So if you read only Santos’ material, The Courier Mail, and the Oz, it never happened. It’s as well the ABC is impartial.

Apart from the cover-up, three other things about this spill are disturbing.

It went on for five days.

Santos has had to import, at great cost, experts from the U.S.A. to fix it. There weren’t any locals with the necessary skills and experience.

No inspectors from Noddy Newman’s Department of the Environment have been anywhere near it.

Stinks to high heaven…….

Update - (4pm 18.06.13)

Note to self - have had a lot of fun with this - asymmetric tactics, I reckon. Trick is to get teh Catz all hot and bothered, light blue touch paper, and stand back.


I might try it again soon.....