After visiting the reef to witness the carrier and its surrounds, Greens Senator Bob Brown dubbed the route “the coal highway”.

“Speculation is growing that a large number of these huge ships, including oil containers, move illegally through this lane near the Douglas Shoal and nothing’s been done about it by the authorities,” Senator Brown said on ABC radio.

Local fishermen have confirmed Sen Brown’s suspicions. “I have definitely seen ships between Douglas Shoal and Great Keppel Island,” Rockhampton fisherman Stephen Pills told The Epoch Times.

Mr Pills, the manager of Barra Jacks Fishing and Outdoors, asked another fisherman in his shop who said most of the coal containers coming in and out of Gladstone used that route.

“I saw one when I was outside there last Friday [April 2],” the fisherman said. “It was the same size as the one stuck on the reef, but it was going south to Gladstone.”

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says a full investigation is underway as to why the ship was almost 30km from authorised shipping channels.

“This is a very serious incident. This ship has acted illegally going into these restricted areas [of the marine park],” she said.

“The Commonwealth Government is now investigating how this happened and I hope, frankly, they throw the book at them.”

Rockhampton lawyer Graham Scott said he was not aware that the ships were acting illegally.

Mr Scott runs a charter boat service to fishing areas just north of Douglas Shoal and has worked closely with GBRMPA. Large ships regularly use the route, he said, but the area was marked in light blue or general usage on GBRMPA maps and so he had not seen it as a problem.

“It’s a reasonably safe passage,” he said, noting that Douglas Shoal itself was restricted, but that area was clearly marked in dark blue on the maps.

A bulk coal carrier caught on Douglas Shoal in the Great Barrier Marine Park may have been following a regular route for industrial ships going in and out of Gladstone, but it could be a timely reminder of inherent environmental danger

The 230-metre Shen Neng 1, carrying 65,000 tonnes of coal and 975 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, ran aground on the reef about 70km east of the popular holiday resort of Great Keppel Island on Easter Saturday April 3.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was “outrageous that any vessel could find itself … off course in the Great Barrier Reef”.

“The practical challenge then is to bring to account [those] responsible,” he said.

Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) spokesman Philip Quirk said Shen Neng 1 was attempting to use an authorised—but not favoured—route from coastal waters out into the Coral Sea.

He said it ran aground in the approaches to the Capricorn Channel in a restricted part of the marine park where the ship should never have been.

“This vessel was attempting to use a route which we would see as not the best practice route,” he told AAP.

Mr Quirk also said the grounding happened outside the coverage area of a vessel tracking system, which would have alerted authorities about the ship straying off course.

Threat to Reef

Relatively calm seas and moderate winds have temporarily allayed concerns the ship could break up, but the threat to the Barrier Reef is not over. Mr Quirk said salvage assistance would be needed to remove the carrier and it would be “a difficult process that could take some time”.

The main engine room on Shen Neng 1 had been breached, he said, the main engine damaged and the rudder seriously damaged.

About two tonnes of fuel oil have already spilled, creating a slick about 3km long and 100m wide, but further leaking has not been registered.

Graham Scott said the pilot would have had to ignore a lot of warning signs to end up on Douglas
Shoal, which he described as a long, low, gradual rise of coral, sand and weed.

Now that it was there, however, it would be very difficult to remove. Water and wind would be acting against each other, he said, grinding the ship on the reef. He could see no other way of removal other than floating it off, which would mean removing the oil and the coal freight.

Mr Scott said that while the damage to Douglas Shoal would be considerable, he hoped that no further damage to the area would occur. The incident was a timely reminder of the environmental cost of an oil spill in that area, he said.

According to MSQ, any major oil spill would not only damage the reef, but would end up in the military area of Shoalwater Bay, one of the most pristine places in the world, which is without vehicle access or any other infrastructure that could be used for a clean-up.

WWF-Australia’s conservation director Dr Gilly Llewellyn said the lack of current safeguards around shipping in the Great Barrier Reef was akin to playing Russian roulette with the world heritage listed area.

“With shipping traffic set to escalate dramatically in these waters over coming years, a major environmental disaster becomes more likely.

“A review of the current management system is urgently needed to ensure it is completely watertight,” she said.

Shen Neng 1 is owned by Shenzhen Energy, a subsidiary of the COSCO Group – China’s largest shipping company.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the shipping company could be fined $1 million and the ship’s captain $250,000 if it was found they had broken Australia’s shipping laws.