Black beaches and 'all hell broken loose': A decade on, the Rena disaster remembered

Monday, 4 October 2021

When the Rena struck the Ōtaiti Astrolabe Reef off the Tauranga coastline, it kick-started the world’s second-largest marine salvage operation.

A decade ago, New Zealand’s biggest maritime disaster began unfolding as the Rena struck a reef off the Tauranga coast.

It was 2.20am on October 5, 2011 when the Rena hit the Ōtaiti Astrolabe Reef, and it soon began leaking its load of oil.

The 236-metre container ship was en route from Napier to Tauranga carrying 1700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 1368 containers.

The numbers alone make clear the scale of the disaster, which blackened beaches, covered the reef with debris including smashed containers, and left a coastal scientist feeling that “all hell had broken loose”.

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Salvage crews used helicopters to remove everything seen in this photo over a nine-month period.

* Rena disaster huge but environmental effects not long-lasting

Rena captain Mauro Balomaga and navigator Leonil Relon were sentenced to seven months in jail for what was described as failures in “basic navigation practices”.

The cleanup effort saw 8000 volunteers tackle 150 contaminated sites, spending 24,000 hours.

The $700 million Rena salvage operation remains the world’s second-most expensive. It cost the New Zealand Government $47 million in clean-up costs [though the Rena owners repaid $27m] for the 350 tonnes of oil that washed ashore, and an army of 8000 volunteers put in thousands of hours.

Despite the challenges, contamination levels after the cleanup were better than expected.

Stuff spoke to a number of key players responsible for dealing with the immediate aftermath of the grounding, including then Environment Minister Nick Smith, Mōtītī Island resident Eunice Evans and the people tasked with the clean-up, Maritime NZ’s Nigel Clifford, Professor Chris Battershill and the man who led an 8000 strong volunteer force, Bruce Fraser.

For those closest to the Rena, the day began with disbelief and questions, according to Mōtītī Island resident Eunice Evans.

“Why was it so close to Mōtītī Island and what was on the ship?” Evans said.

“Of course people were angry, but the cleanup was the immediate priority.

“I went over with my whānau. To be honest it was rather overwhelming, lots of strangers, volunteers from around the world, locals from Tauranga, people being washed down, people going to the beaches in teams, whānau cooking, whānau working. It was surreal, something we’re unaccustomed to on Mōtītī Island.”

“Many months later came the reflections of events that occurred, but you know what, it was about the people,” she said.

Waikato University’s chair of coastal sciences, Professor Chris Battershill, centre, happened to be in Tauranga for a meeting the day of the disaster. He’s pictured in 2019 with Dr Phil Ross, left, and PhD student Sam McCormic.

“The tangata whenua, Mōtītīans, the volunteers, all those people who helped however they could. New Zealanders coming together in a crisis is something to be proud of, and thankful for.”

The environment minister at the time, Nick Smith, remembers that day a decade ago as “my worst day in seven years as environment minister”.

“A huge vessel and the scale of the oil and debris spill made it from day one a huge issue for Government. By the end of October 5 we knew we were deeply in the crap.”

Smith said that within 24 hours advice to him was that the ship could not be moved.

He said the success of what followed was largely down to cooperation between Government ministries, Maritime New Zealand, iwi and Bay of Plenty regional council.

“The wheels could have fallen off,” he said.

Pāpāmoa Beach was one of the worst affected areas when 350 tonnes of oil from the Rena came ashore.

“But the outcome has been significantly better than what was expected 10 years ago.”

Smith’s view is echoed by Nigel Clifford, the then Maritime NZ manager of safety systems and the man charged with leading the response.

He got a phone call just ten minutes after the Rena struck.

“We thought we had what could be a big incident.”

The first task was to ascertain exactly what had happened, the parties involved such as ship owners and insurers, and find out exactly what was on the ship.

He said they then started to mobilise people for salvage and cleanup work guided by three principles in ascending order: Safety of life, environment and lastly, issues around the economic impact.

They did, however, have some luck. A salvage expert was on holiday in the area, and thanks to what Clifford described as the salvage companies’ “very sophisticated intelligence networks” that person was on the ground in Tauranga on October 5.

Within days, the Rena’s owners, the Daina Shipping Company, appointed a salvage company tasked with managing the clean-up, with Maritime NZ oversight.

Only one marine salvage operation has cost more than the $700m Rena cleanup - the US$1.2bn spent on the Costa Concordia in Italy.

Clifford admits to one surprise from that time too.

“We were slow to appreciate the level of local community desire to be involved.”

Bruce Fraser was in the same boat.

The former Bay of Plenty Regional Council staffer had left the organisation to become a PR consultant, but he got a phone call on October 12, two days after the main mass of oil and debris started appearing on beaches.

Would he like to run the volunteer cleanup programme?

Fraser said he was galvanised to take on the role after attending a public meeting at Papamoa Surf Club.

Mōtītī Island, off the Tauranga coast, bore the brunt of the environmental impact from the Rena disaster.

“The place was overrun with people … listening to those people gave me a real sense of how that community was feeling.”

BOP Regional Council set up a volunteer database and “within a very short period 8000 people were registered”.

Fraser said one of the challenges was taking what he described as “a growing sense of community anger” and channelling it positively.

Ad hoc cleanup were well intended, but sometimes resulted in people “traipsing oil about”.

Instead, volunteers were arranged into teams and assign them a specific area, there were health and safety briefings, PPE handed out and team leaders assigned to run each cleanup.

“We would give them a bag to put the oil in, and they’d spend a few hours on their hands and knees.”

When they started, he said “the beaches were black”.

A report Fraser co-authored in May 2012, about the volunteer response, noted the 8000 volunteers managed 150 clean up events over 24,000 volunteer hours.

It also pinpointed a key lesson for handling future spill cleanups.

“Don’t underestimate the connection of communities to significant places. The passion, determination and commitments of the people who volunteered, some many times over, is the single most important element of the success of the volunteer programme.”

And it was a huge success too.

“In all areas apart from the immediate vicinity of the wreck you can’t detect levels of contamination beyond background levels. It was back to background levels within six months, no-one expected that.”

That’s the view of Waikato University’s chair of coastal sciences, Professor Chris Battershill.

In another stoke of luck, he was already in Tauranga on October 5 for a meeting at BOP Regional Council, arriving at around 8am “to find all hell had broken loose”.

He still didn’t expect to be playing a role in the worst oil spill disaster in New Zealand history, initially at least.

“It was unusually calm. We all went to the beach and could just see the ship on the horizon. It looked as if the ship had momentarily stopped.”

Battershill mobilised a team quickly to survey the near shores, reefs, beaches and marine life, so they could ascertain a base level from which to measure the pending contamination.

“It’s important to understand what the environment is like before a pollution event. A unique situation, we get beforehand quite detailed information.”

He said that Pāpāmoa beach, one of the worst affected areas, was “blackened”.

“It looked disastrous, and it was in a sense - 350 tonnes of heavy oil spilt.”

Battershill said he expected at that time to see “significant die-off of kaimoana”.

Thanks to the army of 8000, however, that didn’t happen.

“It’s as simple as getting the load [oil] off and out of the system,” he said.

“Human hand by hand removal.”

Battershill said that in the intervening decade they have tested more than 75,000 tuatua [edible claims] and sieved 30 tonnes of sand.

“Back to background levels [of contamination] within six months. No-one expected that.”

The recovery has been just as remarkable under the water too.

Tauranga diver and ecologist Phil Ross described the scene he found on his first dive in August 2012.

“Debris smothered the reef, the area was covered with smashed containers, coils of wire, scrap metal, a complete mess. You could go an entire dive and not see the reef.”

Now, you’d never know anything had happened.

“The reason that’s been able to happen is the salvage effort went above and beyond,” he said.

“The ecology of the ocean has a great ability to recover.”