Blowout: at the Montara wellhead platform
- Relief for Montara
- Montara legal threat 'premature'
- Montara relief well under way
- Montara spill prompts Canberra move
- West Triton on the move again
- APPEA backs bill to tackle Montara spill
- West Triton nears Montara
- West Triton poised to plug Montara
- Aussie government pledges probe into Montara leak
- West Triton tow line snaps
- PTTEP works on Montara clean-up
- West Triton on its way to Montara
- Glitch delays West Triton sailaway
- Relief well for slick at Montara
- Rudd brands Montara slick 'appalling'
- Delay hits Montara salvage work
- PTTEP prepares to spray Montara
- PTTEP battling slick at Montara
- Pipelay continues at Montara
Fears grow for wildlife
Concerns are growing for marine life off the north-west coast of Australia as the federal government gave itself powers to investigate the cause and effect of the oil spill triggered by the Montara blowout.
The Senate has passed legislation on Wednesday allowing federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson to appoint a commissioner and set the terms of reference for any review.
A spokesman for Ferguson told the Sydney Morning Herald that a full inquiry into the spill would be established once the leak is plugged.
Montara operator PTTEP estimates this will take another three and a half weeks. The blowout occurred on 21 August.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) observations earlier this week found light winds over the weekend had moved the slick 20 kilometres closer to the coast. It is now 150 kilometres offshore. The slick is estimated to cover 6600 square kilometres.
An AMSA spokeswoman said there was 20% coverage of ''sheen'' - an oily film rather than sludge - across most of the slick and it was moving north-east.
But she said a patch had appeared just 10 kilometres from the environmentally sensitive Ashmore Reef, which is 148 kilometres to the west of the West Atlas jack-up rig and away from the main bulk of the slick.
The federal Environment Department said experts on Ashmore Island had confirmed 10 birds - four of which are dead - have been caught up in the slick. The department added that so far it has not received any confirmed reports of oiled whales or other cetaceans.
There have been no checks so far around the rig on any effects of the oil on turtles, whales or sea snakes known to frequent the area.
The Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, told the Sydney Morning Herald he had developed a wildlife response plan and was working with authorities to "prepare for and deal with environmental impacts of this spill".
A private environmental consultant's report commissioned by the WWF claimed 15 species of whales and dolphins, 30 seabird species and five turtle species could be affected by the oil slick.
The report said the spill could end up harming 30,000 sea snakes, which fisherman have already reported finding dead in the ocean nearby, and 16,000 turtles.
Its author, ecologist Simon Mustoe, carried out marine life surveys in the region last year and based his calculations on those figures
"Sometimes people imagine the ocean is sparse with life, but with the time I have spent in this region I can say it has one of the richest marine faunas in the world," he said.
Garrett is preparing next week to release areas in the resource-rich ocean north-west of Australia to become potential marine conservation zones.
- Full coverage of the Montara blowout is available in the related stories section to the right of this story.