Great Barrier Reef not threated by bomb jettison, environmentalist says The U.S. Navy jettisoned four undetonated bombs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park off the coast of the state of Queensland, Australia, on July 16. "The information we have is there's minimal environmental impact; it is a safe situation for the environment, for shipping, for navigation," U.S. Navy spokesman Cmmdr. William Marks told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Members of the Australian Greens Party are criticizing the decision to authorize the emergency jettison. Is this how we look after our World Heritage area now? Senator Larissa Waters asked on the ABC. Two AV-8B Harrier jets were scheduled to drop the bombs on a nearby island as part of a joint Australian and American military training exercise, but civilian boats in the area interfered with the release, forcing the fighter jets to drop the bombs over the famous reef. According to ABC, the area has been used "as a base for joint military exercises with the United States for decades." "The Harriers had a relatively low [fuel] state, and needed to get back to the ship, and so they conducted an emergency jettison," said Marks, adding that the Australian Defense Force authorized the decision to release the bombs about 62 miles off the Queensland coast. Their priority was to get to a place which would take the least impact. We believe we did drop in between 50 and 60 meters of water in a place where it is not a hazard to shipping and not a hazard to navigation. Climate change and the ever-growing population of Australia already threaten the 1,800 mile reef, but the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is not overly concerned about this jettison. It's a fairly featureless shallow habitat on the continental shelf. And it's about 50 miles from the coast and it's not near any shallow coral reef," said the authority's chairman, Russell Reichelt, in an interview with ABC's Stephanie Smail. As soon as we heard where and looked at the location and the choices they made, the environmental risks, are really negligible.