A subantarctic class room, remediation, an Easter holiday and our favorite photos.

Subantarctic classroom

Subantarctic Classroom

Over the last few weeks Albatross researcher; Jaimie Cleeland has been sharing her work with students from Room Six at Latrobe Special Development School. Each student has been working on an individual research project investigating the habits of Macquarie Island wildlife.

The students took a virtual trip across Macquarie Island through photographs and created a large Macca map for the classroom. They have predicted changes to the Macquarie Island ecosystem following the eradication of rabbits, rats and mice and anticipate that the number of giant petrels and wandering albatross on Macquarie Island may increase. Time will tell if they are correct.

Hydrocarbon risk and remediation program

At Macquarie Island there are two sites where fuel spills have occurred — at the Fuel Farm (FF) and at the Main Power House (MPH). The MPH site has ‘historic’ contamination and also a documented spill in 2002.  The Australian Antarctic Division’s Contaminated Sites Group (part of the Terrestrial and Nearshore Ecosystems programme) assesses, develops and implements risk and remediation strategies for these fuel spill areas. Remediation activities have been undertaken since 2009 and are ongoing, with preliminary site-specific remediation end-points expected to be developed before the 2012–13 field season.  The Australian Antarctic Division’s Contaminated Sites Group (part of the Terrestrial and Nearshore Ecosystems programme) assesses, develops and implements risk and remediation strategies for these fuel spill areas. Remediation activities have been undertaken since 2009 and are ongoing, with preliminary site-specific remediation end-points expected to be developed before the 2012-13 field season.

Microbial degradation of hydrocarbons occurs naturally. However, to enhance this process, nutrient addition and aeration of the soil is used to ‘bioremediate’ the contaminated sites.

During the 2011–12 season, four scientists have been busy sampling soil and groundwater in the contaminated areas, to determine contamination levels and assess how the remediation process is going. There has also been a great deal of work undertaken in the laboratory to process samples and determine Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon level in the soil and water samples.

Since ongoing monitoring has indicated that biodegradation is proceeding quite slowly in the MPH area, one of the large tasks this season has been the excavation of this site. This involved removal of the current underground aeration and monitoring infrastructure by hand, which included aeration spikes and tubing, conduit cables, water-sampling piezometers and oxygen sensors.  The area was progressively excavated, sampled and backfilled with the contaminated soil mixed in with slow-release fertilizer, to enhance microbial activity and fuel breakdown.

While playing with contaminated soil may not be as sexy as the mega-fauna wandering around this island, cleaning it up is important for them and our own responsibilities of looking after the World Heritage status of this island.

An Easter holiday

Well it can’t be all work and no play! Easter saw three of the Remediation boffins trek down the east coast to Hurd Point and back to VJM (station) over the top of the island with our trusty Chef Danny. On the coast we had a couple of days of ‘real Macca’ weather, with strong north easterly winds bringing in the rain. The weather didn’t bother us as we got to explore so much of the island and see all the Royal and Rockhopper penguins back home for their moult. We were also blessed with a fresh dump of snow on our last night out, which made the island look even more spectacular… nothing quite like waking to penguins and snow showers.

Some favourite Macca photos

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