Reckless Driving on Coral Reefs Demands Bigger Fines

It took about two weeks to re-float the Shen Neng 1 freighter off the Great Barrier Reef, but it will likely take two decades for the reef to recover. So far, the dollar value of all the damage, and all that time, is a paltry few hundred thousand dollars — maybe up to a million — chump change for a big coal company. With fines that small, it's not surprising that other vessels keep taking risky shortcuts, too.

Investigators are still looking into why the ship strayed so far off course, but some think it's a common practice by vessels trying to navigate shorter routes through the complex reef system. Less than a week after the Shen Neng 1's grounding, Australian authorities arrested three men from the MV Mimosa, also found in restricted waters off the Marine Park.

Fines have ranged from $51,200 to about $205,000 for the various crew members of these vessels, with the possibility of three years jail time for the person in charge of the Shen Neng 1.

These fines are pathetic, but they are unfortunately typical. Exxon wound up only paying $500 million in punative damages for its historically devastating oil spill from the Valdez — the equivalent of about four days of profit in 2007 and only a tenth the original price tag issued by the courts. Such small repercussions are completely disproportionate to the damage groundings cause and do nothing to deter captains from reckless driving — whether because they're trying to save time or simply aren't paying attention.

Preliminary assessments of the damage from Shen Neng 1 don't look good. The strike and subsequent grinding of the ship against the reef pulverized century-old corals into dust across a gash two miles long and 800 feet wide.  Some of the two to four tons of leaked oil floated ashore on North West Island, a sanctuary for sea birds and nesting site for endangered loggerhead sea turtles, just as the hatchlings are emerging from the sand. As Darren Kindleysides, director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, commented, "small amounts of oil at the wrong place at the wrong time can be very damaging."

And, flakes of toxic anti-fouling paint — designed specifically to prevent marine life from growing — scraped off the hull and are now killing corals and could prevent new corals and other marine life from growing in the future, slowing reef recovery.

The situation is not hopeless—given enough time, reefs have shown remarkable resiliency. But, it will be a long, slow process, with no guarantees, especially with the added challenges of global warming, ocean acidification, and land-based pollution.

The price for causing such damage and risking even more needs to be much, much higher: high enough to pay for all the clean up and assessment efforts; high enough to pay for restoration projects; high enough to pay for more monitoring and patrolling; and definitely high enough to dissuade anyone from ever considering a shortcut as a risk worth taking.

Photo credit: National Park Service