Indonesian and East Timorese fishermen may be suffering from skin conditions caused by the Montara oil spill, the lawyer representing them has said.
On the fifth anniversary of one of Australia’s worst oil disasters, Darwin-based lawyer and spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Greg Phelps, called for a full scientific investigation.
He said when he visited the village of Tablolong in West Timor in August 2013 and February this year, he was shown sores and rashes villagers say began appearing after the oil spill.
“Almost 100 per cent of the village turned out to tell us about the effects of this event,” Mr Phelps said.
“We saw people who had skin conditions come from out of the crowd to show us the rashes on their arms and on their neck. Other people reported deaths in that village.”
The Montara oil platform, about 250 kilometres off the north-west coast of Western Australia, ruptured on 21 August 2009, spilling millions of litres of oil at the estimated rate of 400-2000 barrels a day.
It took more than two months to stop the leak.
Mr Phelps said seaweed farming in Tablolong also appeared to have been affected.
“The community reported that their pre-spill production of 500 tonnes has dropped to less than six tonne, which is not much over 1 per cent. And the price has halved because the quality of the seaweed’s deteriorated,” he said.
Mr Phelps said he had the support of the Indonesian government to represent fishermen from the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara, including West Timor, and of the East Timorese government to represent fishermen from the district of Oecusse, on the north-west coast of the island.
In a statement to ABC News in July, the company responsible for the oil spill, PTTEP Australasia, said it was aware of the claims the oil spill had damaged West Timorese fishing and seaweed farming communities.
“But to date, we have not received any credible evidence that oil from Montara caused damage to the environment in West Timor,” the statement said.
“Independent studies published by the Australian Department for the Environment found that 98 per cent of Montara oil stayed in Australian waters.
“The Montara Environmental Monitoring Program showed there was no long-term damage to the marine environment, notably at various reefs and shoals in Australian waters closest to Montara.
“PTTEP has not recently been contacted by the government of Indonesia in relation to this matter. We have been consistently willing to engage with the government of Indonesia to address these claims.
“We have always acted cooperatively and in good faith in our past discussions with the government of Indonesia, and we will continue to do so.”
Hydrocarbons entered Indonesian waters ‘to a significant degree’
Indonesian and East Timorese fishermen claimed the spill had a lasting impact on their health and livelihoods.
A June 2010 report from the Montara Commission of Inquiry found “hydrocarbons did enter Indonesian and Timor Leste waters to a significant degree.”
“However, as indicated by AMSA in its submission to the inquiry, most of the hydrocarbons remained ‘within 35 kilometres of the platform’,” the report stated.
“Sheen and weathered oil was observed in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in September 2009, reaching to within 94km of the island of Palau Roti off the coast of West Timor.”
But it found estimates of the spread of oil were also flawed, given they were only based on surface images, and there was no data on distribution beneath the sea surface.
“There should have been a thorough sub-surface sampling of the oil/dispersant mix,” the report stated.
“This was important to inform judgements about the environmental consequences of the Blowout.”
The inquiry found company failures and the regulatory regime contributed to the disaster.
Mr Phelps said he was certain the oil had moved north beyond Australian waters.
“If this oil had flowed to the Western Australian coastline, the Australians’ reaction would’ve been very different,” he said.
“Had it affected any Australian citizens, there would have been an outrage here.”
Montara inquiry was ‘robust and comprehensive’
Mr Phelps said the Australian Government should, with the governments of Indonesia and East Timor, request PTTEP Australasia fund an independent investigation into the the reach of the spill and its impact.
“We have advised the Government of Australia that there are reports of significant damage to the fisheries and to seaweed farming; there are reported deaths,” he said.
Mr Phelps said initial investigations should involve taking samples from mangrove muds and coral sediments, fish tissue and seaweed tests.
“To conduct the study is just a few million dollars, that’s a cheap oil spill,” he said.
“Why wouldn’t they do that to prove that oil didn’t get there? Of course they’re not doing it because they’re afraid of what they’ll find.”
The Federal Industry Minister told the ABC in a statement the Australian Government was confident the inquiry into the Montara incident was “robust and comprehensive and that appropriate measures were taken.”
In 2012, PTTEP Australasia pleaded guilty to charges under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act and was fined $510,000.
PTTEP Australasia continues to operate its Montara oil field project in the Timor Sea, off the coast of Western Australia.
A spokesman for the company said it was in the process of putting the Montara project assets up for sale, but that details of the sale were commercial-in-confidence.
The spokesman said the Montara project began oil production last year and had produced about four million barrels of oil in the past 12 months.