Threat to the ocean

Photo credit: The Olive Ridley Project

Marine life at risk

To make way for the planned pipeline that will pump the gas to land, Santos will dredge and trench 61km of sea floor through northern Australia’s most important marine park at the Oceanic Shoals. This marine park supports a tropical snapper fishery that is crucial to Australia.

The pipeline could also destroy the habitats of dozens of threatened species including whales, dugongs and turtles. It will come within six kilometres of vitally important nesting beaches for the Olive Ridley Turtle.

The pipeline will extend all the way into Darwin Harbour and cut through the middle of the Charles Point reef fish protection zone, the Northern Territory’s most important marine protected area. It hosts spawning sites for Golden Snapper and Jewfish.

We urgently need your help to protect these creatures. Tell the companies to #StopBarossaGas

The construction of the Barossa pipeline would likely harm the Olive Ridley turtles’ feeding habitat and create light and noise pollution that could distract turtle hatchlings.

An oil spill could devastate the Timor Sea

Santos have released maps showing the possible destruction caused to the Timor Sea if something goes wrong with their planned Barossa gas project. If there is a well blow out, vast swathes of the northern coast of Australia, Timor Leste, and West Timor face a catastrophic scenario.

But no one in West Timor or Timor Leste has been notified of this possibility. Communities there are still suffering the legacy of the last Australian company’s reckless actions: the Montara spill in 2009, which damaged the livelihoods of thousands upon thousands of seaweed farmers.