Coast braces for Rena debris

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Sun, 08 Jan 2012 5:06p.m.

Coastal areas are bracing for more debris to wash up from the Rena

Coastal areas are bracing for more debris to wash up from the Rena

By Ashlee Tulloch and Janika Ter Ellen

As fears of grow that debris from the Rena will wash up on beaches, seaside towns are bracing for the worst.

Scores of people in the area are coming down to the waters edge hoping they will not see anything but water but the weather forecast does not look good.

All the beaches between Mt Maunganui and Opotiki have been closed, with lifeguards advising not to enter the water as they anticipate the large swells to push debris, containers and oil on shore.

And while locals are remaining optimistic their beaches will be alright, some people have simply had enough.

“Locals are fed up. It’s going to affect tourism and everything,” says one resident.

“It’s most disconcerting – I think the government needs to tighten up shipping laws in New Zealand and make shipping people more accountable for what they do and what their ships do.”

For now, all residents can do it watch and hope.

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Comments

09 Jan 2012 01:22p.m.

John wrote:

lol patsy you're pleased with the response of this vessel?... they realise oil was leaking... moments before it hit shore... they started focusing on the containers and forgot about the part the ship has to be stripped to be sunken... could've prepared for this i've known it was going to split this whole time, swells + salt water + stressed metal + oxygen = 2 RENA's, the money for the ship that was designed for an "incase" scenario was approved unfortunately the money "evaporated" SSSSoooooo... To sum it up it's partially the governments fault for a delayed response letting it get outta hand before we could conatin the situation, a tad of a disaster, and a mass lack of maturity from the ships captain i guess we need don't drink and ship campaigns on our T.V now.. it seems to have a bigger effect then drunk drivers...

08 Jan 2012 09:02p.m.

Patsy wrote:

BOplast, you are hilarious! Love a good sense of humour. Apparently it is not a bit like unloading the groceries from the back of your car! If you watch Code Red program on discovery you will note that it takes every bit as long anywhere else in the world and not always met with this degree of success. Salvage is a dangerous occupation with many comnplexities. Loved your comment though.

08 Jan 2012 07:44p.m.

BOPlast wrote:

A fiasco from go to woe that reflects badly on port authorities, the bureaucracy and the country. Anywhere else in the world, those containers and the oil would have been removed by the end of the first week. By now that vessel would have been cut up for scrap. An absolute disgrace.

08 Jan 2012 06:54p.m.

Mike wrote:

As a ecological disaster its a storm in a tea cup.

There have been wrecks in the past, there will be wrecks in the future. Life goes on.

Take WWII where a small 14,500,000 tonnes of shipping was lost putting that much oil/debris into the seas. But we didn't have Greenpeace playing up for the cameras and the world just got on with it. Take a look at everywhere where shipping was lost, they tended to have much worse than the Rena wash up on-shore, and in a relatively short time even without volunteers doing the politically correct cleanup for cameras, the beaches of the world cleaned up. If we take the crude oil bubbling up out of the ocean where no drilling has been conducted, it is millions of barrels and possibly billions of barrels (of hydro carbons, oil/methane etc) a year and we dont even notice as in the world oceans its only a drop in the ocean. Greenpeace would argue its better to have crude oil bubble into our oceans undisturbed than to harvest it, just like they are anti the recycling of plant waste as stock food. We have had Greenpeace protest Fonterra for their not importing Palm Kernel being used by some farmers as stock food because Greenpeace prefers not to recycle, plus they wouldn't like to put fair trade value into 3rd world countries pockets for using recycling waste plants as stock food. What if some 3rd world people starve because of not having enough money to afford food because Greenpeace blocked their countries exports - Greenpeace wont care! Which is more important to Greenpeace of 'feed the world' or 'let the world starve while protesting in front of cameras', the cameras will win every time!

Yes lets make it harder for such disasters to happen, but dont panic over nothing like the scaremongers at Greenpeace want us too.