Rena update (update 138)

22 December 2011 - 11.30AM

Salvage and container recovery operations on Rena will continue throughout the Christmas and New Year break, while oil spill response teams will remain ready to respond should more oil come ashore during the holidays, says Maritime New Zealand (MNZ).

MNZ National On Scene Commander, Rob Service, said while oil spill response activity would be scaled back during the Christmas/New Year period to give teams a well-deserved break, they remained on call and ready to respond should more oil from Rena hit local beaches.

Mr Service said the incident command centre would also continue to run over the Christmas break, but the staffing would be reduced to a core team.

This team would continue to monitor the movement of the oil sheen around Rena and continue planning for potential future releases of oil.

Response personnel in Tauranga would remain ready to respond to public reports of oil on the beaches, and the wider response team would be on-call and ready to return to Tauranga in the event of another large spill from Rena.

Salvors and staff from container retrieval company Braemar Howells would also continue to work through the holidays on removing and processing containers taken from the Rena.

“While it is really pleasing to see containers coming off Rena and the situation remaining relatively stable, we must remain vigilant,” Mr Service said.

“We know there is still oil on the wreck that the salvage team can’t reach. We are ready to launch another large scale-response if and when that oil is released.”

Mr Service also thanked everyone who had assisted with the Rena oil spill response as the year wound to a close.

Mr Service was one of the first oil spill responders to reach Tauranga, on 5 October, hours after Rena ran aground and was responsible for declaring the event a Tier 3, or national level, oil spill response. Since that day, hundreds of people from throughout the country and the rest of the world have dedicated their time and energy to responding to New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental emergency.

“Everyone who has been here – whether they’ve been organising the response from within the incident command centre, out on the beach cleaning up oil, working on board the Rena, or at the wildlife facility caring for birds, has put in 150 percent and, for that, we at MNZ are hugely grateful,” Mr Service said.

“It’s been a very intense 11 weeks and people have put in some incredibly long hours and shown an outstanding commitment to restoring and protecting the Bay of Plenty environment.

“We wish everyone who has worked alongside us – whether they are central or local government personnel, volunteers or our colleagues from overseas – a very happy Christmas and a restful break.”