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More than 4000 people have helped clean-up Tauranga’s beaches since the cargo ship Rena grounded over a month ago.
Today the 100th beach clean-up event took place on Papamoa beach, with 107 volunteers out in force to help.
Another 40 volunteers turned up to Maketu and 12 to Te Tumu, while shoreline assessment teams at Mt Manganui are working out the best way to clean-up oil which has been reported there over the last few days.
Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) Assistant National On Scene Commander Andrew Berry said the efforts of volunteers have made a massive difference to the state of the beaches.
Two lightly oiled little blue penguins from Motiti Island were brought to the Oiled Wildlife Treatment facility today, bringing the total number of birds in care to 403.
Berry said that all the birds seemed to have coped well with sound from the speedway event last night. He thanked the speedway organisers and Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosbie for agreeing to cancel the fireworks display that would traditionally have ended the event.
Meanwhile, salvage teams are working to pump 22 tonnes of lubricating oil out of the Rena’s engine room onto the barge Awanuia.
The work is happening alongisde preparations to remove the remaining 358 tonnes of heavy fuel oil from the ship’s submerged wing tank, which is submerged in the water.
MNZ salvage unit manager Kenny Crawford said that more than 20 salvors were working on board the Rena today, handling 3 tonnes of hoses, ladders and two large pumps in preparation for pumping.
One of the pumps was now in position and the other was still to be placed.
This morning the salvors who are raising the oil level in the starboard tank by pumping in 750 tonnes of seawater, temporarily halted pumping while they vented fumes escaping from the tank.
This took four to five hours, Mr Crawford said.
Pumping seawater has now resumed.
Monitoring of the vessel’s hull has continued with no further significant buckling found today.
Underwater transponders have been fixed to four containers known to contain hazardous goods, so they can be easily located should they be lost overboard.
Berry said sonar scans of the seabed were continuing in an effort to locate more of the containers that fell off the Rena in a storm three weeks ago.
Several have been located on the seabed within 1km of the vessel.
The container barge ST60 will begin trials in the Bay of Plenty this week but efforts to lift containers off the Rena will not begin until after the last of the oil has been removed.