MV Rena wasn’t an oil tanker; the 1,700 tonnes of oil it carried were fuel for its own engines. Hundreds of tonnes of this were released after it hit the reef. Ships of all types have the potential to cause environmental disasters.
Initially, authorities treated the spill with dispersants – chemicals that react with the oil and break up the slicks. But this was stopped after a week when environmental experts warned that dispersants might do more harm than good to marine life.
Some of the oil spread across the water, some sank to the seabed and some made its way to shore. A thick, black, tar-like substance covered the coastline. Beaches were closed. Clean-up volunteers were warned that contact with the oil could lead to vomiting, nausea and rashes, and local residents were urged to close their windows to avoid fumes. But thousands of people still worked tirelessly, literally on their hands and knees, to clean the oil off the beaches.
About 2,000 seabirds died from being covered in oil, and around 20,000 birds are thought to have been lost due to contamination of their ecosystem and food.
Three hundred and eighty three oiled little blue penguins were rescued and carefully cleaned, and 95% of these were released back to the wild.
No new Rena-related oil wash-ups have been reported since March 2014 and numbers of local seabirds like dotterels and penguins are stable or increasing. The Rena Recovery Project was declared complete in July 2015.
Cooking oil helps remove Rena fuel oil from a penguin. Photo from Maritime New Zealand
