Rough seas make oil spill New Zealand’s worst nightmare

A GROWING oil spill from a stricken container ship off New Zealand’s North Island has become the country’s worst- ever maritime environmental disaster, the government said yesterday.

Rough weather has worsened a leak from the Liberia-flagged Rena and clumps of heavy oil from the vessel have washed up on pristine beaches near Tauranga, on the Bay of Plenty.

Environmental officials said 53 birds had been found dead and 17 were having emergency treatment to remove oil from their feathers.

“This event has come to a scale where it is New Zealand’s most significant environmental maritime disaster,” environment minister Nick Smith told reporters in Tauranga, adding that the clean-up would take weeks.

The ship has been foundering since it ran aground on 5 October on the Astrolabe Reef, about 14 miles from Tauranga harbour, and the government has demanded to know why the ship crashed into the well-charted reef in calm weather. The owner has given no reason for the grounding, but says it is cooperating with authorities.

Rough weather in recent days has kept salvage crews away.

Late on Monday night, the 775ft ship shifted significantly, spilling hundreds of tons of oil from an unidentified rupture in the hull, said Nick Bohm, a spokesman for Maritime New Zealand, which is managing the emergency response.

Up to 390 tons of heavy fuel oil spilled from the hull yesterday, about five times the rate in the initial days of the spill, Mr Smith said. Officials believe the ship had 1,870 tons of oil and 220 tons of diesel on board.

Mr Bohm said a salvage crew had to be taken off the ship yesterday morning because ocean swells of up to 10ft made conditions too dangerous. The swells were expected to increase.

Without the salvage crew aboard, oil cannot be pumped out of the ship. “We’ll see what’s happening with the ship and they’ll be redeployed as quickly as possible,” Mr Bohm.

Referring to the ship, he added: “We’re not saying it’s going to break up yet; we’re not convinced.” Divers were scheduled to inspect damage to the hull today, he said.

Maritime New Zealand said a beach clean up was under way and more teams would be deployed today, when oil is expected to reach the shore in greater quantities.

Rescue teams were also searching the shore for more wildlife affected by the oil. Jen Riches, an official with WWF-New Zealand at Tauranga, said her environmental group was concerned over the fate of fur seals as well as birds such as the endangered New Zealand dotterel.

“If they don’t manage to get that oil off and it ends up in the ocean, that’s going to be a disaster for marine wildlife, for people and for New Zealand,” she said.

In a statement, Costamare, the Greece-based owners of the ship, said they were “co-operating fully with local authorities” and making every effort to “control and minimise the environmental consequences” of the spill.

The Rena was built in 1990 and was carrying 1,351 freight containers when it ran aground, according to Costamare. Authorities are concerned about potentially dangerous cargo, including four containters of ferrosilicon.