CQU researchers Dr Leonie Andersen and Dr Felicity Melville have featured on ABC TV's Stateline show, discussing the 2006 oil spill in Gladstone Harbour.

The program points out that the CQU pair were the first marine scientists on the scene. They were commissioned by the Port Curtis Integrated Monitoring Program, an industry consortium monitoring the health of the harbour.

Dr Andersen is shown saying "we were pretty devastated for an oil spill to happen in Gladstone Harbour. It could have had devastating consequences".

"We could have large areas of the mangrove ecosystems affected. So you've got huge areas which are nurseries for commercial fishing so all of those animals could have been affected and therefore fisheries and follow on effects from those.

"I think we were extremely lucky at the time we had some of the highest tides of the year and also quite strong south easterly winds and what that did was to push the oil up into small localized areas. We were quite surprised by that considering the aerial photographs of how much oil was actually in the harbour," Dr Andersen says in the coverage.

Dr Melville says: "What we've been doing is using the sediment that we collected straight after the spill and seeing what effect it is having on the local sort of animals that would be living around here."

"It's definitely a favorable outcome. Fish don't appear to be affected and other organisms in the food web, so we don't have any problems with our recreational fishing or our fishing industry and it's all thumbs up from here."

Dr Andersen says: "The front of the mangroves seem to be quite okay but there will be some die-back of mangroves over the next few years but in terms of the animals or the ecosystem that is surviving in those areas they seem to be recovering well.

"Generally fisheries are pretty prone to weather conditions and we haven't had any rain this year."

The full transcript is available at: http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/qld/content/2006/s1914922.htm

Dr Felicity Melville
Dr Leonie Andersen
Mangrove monitoring