Scientific Audit of Marine Parks - Background information
for threats from shipping and marine incidents along the
NSW coast
This document and the material referenced herein relate to the Scientific Audit Terms of
Reference:
“Review the degree to which all threats to the varying types of marine environments have
been properly identified and prioritised. In doing this the panel will consider the degree
to which the marine parks process is anticipated to address each significant threat”
Office of Environment and Heritage contacts:
Dr Kate Wilson, Executive Director Scientific Services
kate.wilson@environment.nsw.gov.au
tel: 02 9995 5610
mob: 0408 462 063
Dr Klaus Koop, Director Environment and Conservation Science
klaus.koop@environment.nsw.gov.au
tel: 02 9995 5536
mob: 0407 462 398
The Marine Biodiversity Decline Report has categorised threats to marine biodiversity as
follows:
Climate change
Resource use
Pollution
Land based impacts
Biosecurity
Changes in connectivity, biodiversity impacts
Fisheries impacts
Commercial fishing
Recreational fishing
Minerals
Tourism
Aquaculture
Shipping, marine incidents
Coastal councils, coastal parks, catchment run off
CMAs
Disease
Invasives
This paper deals with the threat of “Shipping and marine incidents”.
Risks from shipping
Significant shipping activity off the NSW coast poses a risk to marine and coastal ecosystems
because of the threat of grounding and oil spills. The risk from groundings relates to physical
damage to the environment as well as chemical spills from ruptured ship’s hulls and residual
antifouling paints scraped from the hull during grounding and salvage. The latter poses a
particular risk of toxicity to marine organisms. This paper will not deal further with the issue of
contamination from antifouling paints but will address the issue of chemical and oil spills.
Towards the end we will also briefly discuss issues of marine debris.
This background paper briefly outlines shipping densities and location as an indicator of the
degree of risk and then talks about how NSW deals with that threat under the “National Plan to
Combat Pollution of the Sea by Oil and other Noxious and Hazardous Substances”. More
detailed information is available from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) at
http://www.amsa.gov.au/index.asp.
The major shipping lane off the east coast of Australia is between 10-15 nm offshore and runs
parallel to the coast (Fig. 1). This shipping lane is the most active in Australia with as many as
350 vessels in excess of 300 t operating in the shipping lane at any one time (AMSA, pers.
comm.). Most of this traffic originates or is travelling to one of the major east Australian ports;
Brisbane, Newcastle or Sydney. Shipping lanes off the major ports of Sydney (incl. Botany Bay)
and Newcastle experience the greatest density of ship movements (Fig 2).
Figure 1. Australia’s main shipping lanes (courtesy of AMSA).
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Figure 2. Density of AUSREP (Australian Ship Reporting) ship locations in 2008 for northern
NSW. The 12-nm line is indicated in blue (Data courtesy of the Australian Maritime Safety
Authority (AMSA)).
The coastal waters of the Hunter-Central Rivers region, and immediately offshore, experience
the heaviest shipping traffic on the NSW coast (see Fig. 2 red squares). The majority of ships
leaving the Port of Newcastle travel along the coast just east of that region. The number of ships
varies from year to year but the spatial pattern is fairly similar with ships regularly passing within
3 nm of the shore at certain points (Fingal Head and Sugarloaf Point). The majority of ships visit
the Port of Newcastle; 2,992 shipping movements (1,426 ship visits) were reported for the
2006/2007 financial year with 3,277 shipping movements (1,566 ship visits) between
2007/2008, representing a 10% increase over that period (Newcastle Port Corporation, 2009). It
is expected that the Port improvements will lead to increased shipping traffic through the port.
These shipping movements were primarily bulk coal transfers (88.88 million t of a total of 93.31
Mt traded through the Port in 2007/2008 – Newcastle Port Corporation, 2008).
Newcastle Port Corporation (NPC) records the position of all ships lying within the offshore
anchorage (“Fair Weather Anchorage”). Since the grounding of the Pasha Bulker during a storm
in 2007, ships are advised to anchor outside the 3-nm limit and must be ready to move if
weather conditions turn unfavourable. Ships must anchor south of 32º 58’ S, south of the Port
Stephens-Great Lakes Marine Park. NPC records show that, on any given day since 2007, the
number of ships in the anchorage varies from 12 - 85 with an average of 40 ships. Ships have
anchored as far south as Barrenjoey Headland north of Sydney and remain in the anchorage for
an average of 17 days (Newcastle Port Corporation, pers. comm.).
AMSA has recently commissioned an assessment of the risk of pollution from marine oil spills in
Australia as part of its 10-year review of the National Plan. The report is expected to be
completed in the next few months.
Scientific Audit of NSW Marine Parks: Shipping and marine incidents
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Response to the risks – the “National Plan”
Response to oil and chemical spills from shipping in NSW waters is co-ordinated by NSW
Maritime (http://www.maritime.nsw.gov.au/). The NSW State Waters Marine Oil and Chemical
Spill Contingency Plan (2011) implements the state component of the National Plan to Combat
Pollution of the Sea by Oil and other Noxious and Hazardous Substances (known as the
National Plan
(http://www.amsa.gov.au/marine_environment_protection/national_plan/general_information/Ov
erview.asp).
The NSW State Waters Marine Oil and Chemical Spill Contingency Plan (2011) (State Plan) is a
sub-plan under the NSW State Disaster Plan (Displan) and is therefore able to access the full
range of resources available for any State Disaster. Under the plan, Port Corporations are
combat authorities for designated Ports and adjacent shores and NSW Maritime is the combat
authority for all other state waters (up to 3 nm seaward). The Australian Maritime Safety
Authority (AMSA) is responsible for oil spills in Commonwealth Waters (3 – 200 nm offshore).
Under the State Plan, marine oil spill responders have access to significant stockpiles of
equipment, owned by either the Ports or by AMSA, at the major Ports and under the National
Plan can request equipment or personnel from other states.
Shore-based oil and chemical spills or spills from boat and ships in Inland Waters (e.g. rivers,
fishing ports and bays and estuaries - including Jervis Bay) are not covered by the State Plan
and are the responsibility of the Fire Brigade under Hazmat arrangements. Agreements are in
place for Fire Brigades to access Port and AMSA staff and equipment and other specialist State
Plan resources.
If a spill occurs an Incident Controller is appointed from a pool of trained staff at Ports, Maritime
or Fire Brigade. A tightly defined response management team is then formed under the IC to
guide the response. Safety of life is the first priority of the response followed by minimizing
environmental impact. Under the NSW State Plan arrangements OEH provides an Environment
and Science Co-ordinator (ESC) to the response team to provide high level environmental
advice to the Incident Controller (IC). It is the ESC’s task to evaluate the situation, assess
natural resources at risk and recommend protection priorities to the IC. The IC then decides
what action will be taken. The ESC has at their disposal the NSW Oil Spill Response Atlas,
which includes a compendium of available environmental information (including the location of
Marine Parks). Response activities are informed by an assessment of the areas threatened and
their sensitivity. Marine Parks are considered highly sensitive. The ESC also has access
(through AMSA) to oil and chemical trajectory modelling to predict the areas that oil or
chemicals may affect. In the event of a spill that may affect Marine Parks, the IC has the option
of using the ESC to source and relay information about the Park or to include a Marine Park
representative as a Liaison Officer to the response team.
Management of the NSW Oil Spill Response Atlas is the responsibility of NSW Maritime.
Updating of the NSW Oil Spill Response Atlas is funded by AMSA and compilation is coordinated by NSW Maritime. Data layers are updated or added to the Atlas as they become
available from other sources, but collection of new data is rarely funded. Thus the recet work in
NSW on mapping of underwater habitats in Marine Parks has been incorporated into the latest
version of the Atlas. The Atlas is available to all response agencies and the ESC, but since it is
Scientific Audit of NSW Marine Parks: Shipping and marine incidents
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compiled from existing data most of the data is already available to wider government through
the original sources of the data.
The NSW Oil Spill Response Atlas rapidly moving from a simple compendium of natural
resource data to an active planning and recording tool for all aspects of the spill response. The
addition of new functions is being facilitated by integration with the existing Spatial Information
Management System developed by NSW Emergency Management for general use in
emergencies in NSW.
The inclusion of oil and chemical spill response into the State Disaster Plan arrangements
provides good integration with existing emergency response structures but still provides for the
application of the specialist skills required for oil spill response. This model is seen as best
practice for Australia.
Marine debris
‘Injury and fatality to vertebrate marine life caused by ingestion of, or entanglement in, harmful
marine debris’ was listed nationally as a key threatening process in August 2003. Harmful
marine debris refers to all plastics and other types of debris from domestic or international
sources that may cause harm to vertebrate marine wildlife. This includes land-sourced waste
and garbage (such as bags, bottles, ropes, fibreglass, piping, insulation, paints and adhesives),
abandoned fishing gear from recreational and commercial fisheries (e.g. strapping bands,
synthetic ropes, derelict fishing nets, floats, hooks, fishing line and wire trace), and shipsourced, solid, non-biodegradable floating materials disposed of at sea (e.g. fibreglass,
insulation) (DEWHA, 2009).
The Background Paper for the Threat Abatement Plan for the impacts of marine debris on
vertebrate marine life (2009) provides comprehensive background material about the threats
posed by such debris and how they are managed. The actual Threat Abatement Plan (2009)
details the actions to be taken by Commonwealth and State and Territory governments.
There is no coordinated research by NSW agencies on marine debris but there is ongoing
research by the CSIRO under its Wealth from Oceans Flagship:
A research team with the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship, led by Dr Britta Denise
Hardesty, is addressing the critical issue of marine debris in Australian waters
(http://www.csiro.au/science/marine-debris.html#1#1). They are:

describing the types of debris that occur

building a predicted distribution of debris at sea

using a risk analysis approach to understand the impacts of marine debris on threatened
wildlife such as turtles, sharks and seabirds.
Risks to NSW marine and coastal natural resources are reduced by existing regulations:

Plastics are prohibited from disposal into the sea.

No other garbage may be discharged within 12 nautical miles from the nearest land.

Sewage from vessels may not be disposed of within 12 nautical miles from the nearest
land.
Scientific Audit of NSW Marine Parks: Shipping and marine incidents
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Bibliography – Threats from shipping and marine incidents
Authors
Year
Title
NSW Maritime
Newcastle Port
Corporation
Newcastle Port
Corporation
DEWHA
2011
2008
NSW State Waters Marine Oil and Chemical Spill Contingency Plan
Annual Report 2007-2008
Peer
Review
No
No
2009
Annual Report 2008-2009
No
2009
?
DEWHA
2009
Background Paper for the Threat Abatement Plan for the impacts of
marine debris on vertebrate marine life
Threat Abatement Plan for the impacts of marine debris on vertebrate
marine life
Publication
Status
Agency Plan
Corporate
annual report
Corporate
annual report
Agency report
?
Agency report