M V Rena Oil Spill – Lack Of Leadership Evident. Ferrosilicon, Oil Concerns

The Liberian flagged Rena

Days after the grounding of the Liberian flagged MV Rena in the early hours of 5 October, Prime Minister Key has finally found time in his busy World Cup schedule to visit Tauranga and see the extent of the damage caused by the oil leaking from the vessel. Already 100 tonnes of oil from the ship are thought to be unaccounted for. (watch projected oil spill video here)

The handling of the impending environmental disaster has been anything but 100% efficient and it has raised grave concerns about the government’s ability to deal with a future oil spillage off the NZ coast, something that strikes fear into the heart of the many businesses that rely on the sea for their livelihoods, environmental groups and local residents.

With oil exploration off the coast of New Zealand getting gathering pace and an Australian company’s well drilled  in the Marlborough Sounds it raises fresh doubts about the country’s ability to deal with a major oil spillage, such as that of the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras International Braspetro B.V was recently given a 5 year permit to drill for oil on 12,333 square kilometres off the North Island’s East Cape. Water depths range from shallow to 3000m at its northern reaches. By comparison BP’s leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico is in water 1500m deep.

Blogger, The Jackalman, has uncovered some disturbing information when he became concerned about the lack of  disclosure about who owns the MV Rena and found alleged ties to the Israeli military. He also was concerned at National ‘s slow response and wondered why they’d been slow to react.

In addition to mentions of plutonium cores and parts for military helicopters he writes that there was evidence of a lack of maintenance of the vessel and NZ authorities not being allowed on board to breath-test Filipino crew members.

ferrosilicon ore, image from wikipedia

Worryingly he lists Ferrosilicon, (above, used by the military to produce highly flammable hydrogen) among the hazardous substances carried in the cargo (there are 4 containers of it aboard) and the effects if it comes into contact with water.  He also questions whether Yellow Cake, mined in Australia may be among the cargo and why National has not released the ship’s inventory.

The Jackalman writes:

In August this year, Australia detained the MV Rena because of cracked and rusted parts. The Australian Maritime Safety Authority after “serious deficiencies” were found detained the vessel for a day in Fremantle, Western Australia. The authority’s report found the vessel had “not been maintained between surveys”, the “hatchway cover securing arrangements are defective” and cargo was not stowed and secured as stipulated in the cargo-securing manual.

Despite the Rena being beached in New Zealand’s territorial waters, authorities were not allowed to board the vessel to breath test the crew to ensure drunkenness was not a reason for the accident.

The hazardous substance that authorities have confirmed is being transported by the Rena is Ferrosilicon, which is used by the military to quickly produce hydrogen. The chemical reaction uses sodium hydroxide, ferrosilicon, and water. The materials are stable and not combustible, and they do not generate large amounts of hydrogen until mixed. Ferrosilicon will slowly release hydrogen when in contact with water.

As early as Friday 7 October politician Winston Peters was already voicing strong concern about the perceived inertia of the response. With heavy seas predicted there is an ever increasing risk that the vessel will break-up releasing a potentially hazardous cargo into the sea :

More than 72 hours after the grounding of the M V Rena, with over 1500 tons of oil on board, at the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga the lack of urgency and inertia demonstrated by the Government is to be deplored’, says Winston Peters, Leader of NZ First.

‘Sitting around waiting for some overseas expert to arrive is surely not the answer. Shippers have for years being paying a fee to cover such an event. Now that it is here the public should be demanding to know, where is Prime Minister Key, Transport Minister Joyce or Environmental Minister Smith. This is not a disaster waiting to happen. It has happened and failure to have already acted with the speed this event requires could have dire prospects for the Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and East Coast.’

‘Any dramatic worsening of sea conditions could spell further or total loss of the oil at sea and a breakup of the ship. The real issue is why hasn’t our training and preparation for such an event been met with a sense serious danger and appropriate response? Running around talking about good news and grabbing photo opportunities should be suspended and this issue dealt with now.

‘The oil should be taken off the boat now as should any dangerous cargo. That is not what is happening.’

‘Moreover the dispersal agent being used is likely to be as dangerous as the oil itself because its characteristics are to take the oil to the sea floor where it’s danger to the marine ecology will have tragic effects.

‘The economy of the Bay of Plenty is already under threat from Psa in the Kiwi Fruit industry. The danger is imminent from this shipping disaster and it calls for action and leadership. Where is it?’ said Mr Peters.

Experts  warning “environmental disaster” looming, lack of readiness.

Environmental Defence Society (EDS) chairman, Gary Taylor, said on 7 October maritime authorities were moving too slowly to contain the oil spill. He also said that experimental spraying of dispersal chemicals wasn’t working and that there was a lack of readiness on the part of authorities to deal with an oil spill off the coast of New Zealand.

The Environmental Defence Society has called on Maritime New Zealand to act faster to contain oil spilling from the container ship Rena off Tauranga Harbour.

“We are very concerned to see this incident inexorably moving into a full-scale environmental disaster,” said EDS Chairman Gary Taylor.

“The area is one that has high natural values with many seabirds, marine mammals and fish at risk from contamination. Nearby beaches and communities are at risk.
“It is now three days since the container ship became stranded on the Astrolabe Reef and there is still no containment boom around the ship to prevent oil dispersing into the wider marine environment. The sea is calm at present and we see no reason why containment should not already be in place. We understand suitable equipment is available.
“We are not convinced by what we have seen so far that Maritime New Zealand has the situation under control.

“This impression is reinforced by the way they are experimenting with helicopter spraying of dispersal chemicals only to find they are not working. This is redolent of the Gulf of Mexico distaster where authorities were found wanting of tried and proven response techniques.

“We would have thought that there would be a rapid, effective and proven response to this kind of incident and instead are seeing unexplained delays and trialling of different methods of control. This indicates a general lack of readiness on the part of the relevant authorities to deal with an oil spill off the New Zealand coast.”

“We agree with the Green Party that this is not a good look when we consider the imminent prospect of oil exploration off the same east coast of the North Island. If this is an indication of our readiness then there is a lot of work to be done. How the ship got onto to the reef and accountability for that is one thing. The response from Maritime New Zealand and its performance in responding to the situation is another.”

“We are looking for rapid deployment of containment booms, removal of the oil from the ship and over a longer time-frame removal of containers that pose a threat to the environment,” Mr Taylor concluded. source

Today the EDS issued another press release questioning Maritime New Zealand’s readiness to deal with such incidents and that the situation was worsening with each passing day

Environmental Defence Society questions Maritime NZ tardiness
The Environmental Defence Society , which earlier this week called for a faster response to the Rena incident, is now questioning the readiness of Maritime New Zealand to deal with such incidents.

“There is no doubt now that this is a very serious situation, made worse by the passing of every day,” said EDS Chairman Gary Taylor.

“So we need to ask why Maritime New Zealand has been so slow out of the blocks when it should have contingency plans in place that are ready to go the moment an incident occurs.
“No attempts have been made to contain the oil with booms, there seems to be an experiment with dispersal agents, all the equipment required is not available in New Zealand and is being brought from overseas, expertise also seems not available here and is being brought in and no containers have yet been removed.

“And all this with worsening weather imminent. Winds are shifting on-shore and strengthening with heavier swells likely to increase the probability of stressing a vulnerable hull and the ship breaking up.

“It is extremely disconcerting to see how delays at every turn are increasing the risks. We would have thought that clear plans would be in place to deal with all conceivable incidents and that their deployment would be rapid and certain. “Whilst the focus at the moment must be on containing the scale of this unfolding disaster, an inquiry into the way it has been handled is inevitable.

“As New Zealand moves more aggressively into offshore oil exploration, New Zealanders will want to know that is something goes wrong we are ready to deal with it competently and swiftly. We also have large numbers of oil tankers, with much more oil on board than a coastal container ship, plying our waters on a regular basis. They have the potential for a much greater disaster.

“This should be a real wake-up call for all of us and we should learn as much as we can from it so as to better manage any future spills. “New Zealand has more than 14,000km of coastline and some of the most important and biodiverse oceans in the world. We need world-class environmental standards and international best practice in oil spill management available at a moments notice.

“ What we are seeing is not good enough,” Mr Taylor concluded.

With cracks are already appearing in the ships hull the continuing dangers of the MV Rena will be as nothing compared to the major ecological disaster caused by a leaking oil well off the NZ coast.

If the government can’t sort out a single cargo ship what hope does it stand of coping with the cracks in its disaster management response when a major oil pollution incident presents itself.

You may also be interested in these related blogs

100% Pure NZ Oil Well To Be Sunk Near Marlborough Sounds (July 2010)

Mass Penguin Deaths Blamed On East Coast Oil Exploration (May 2011)

and our Green Credentials, Or Green Wash information page

New Zealanders Have Their Say On Key’s Hardtalk Interview

John Key Appeared on the BBC's Hardtalk

The BBC’s Hardtalk interview with John Key certainly caused great interest around the world, the video becoming the second most popular on the BBC’s website. Read our blog about it and watch the videos here

Here’s what New Zealanders have been saying about it

Zorr (The Standard.org.nz)

Finally, an interview where some truly difficult points were forced. Made John Key look like a complete amateur and, despite some notable occasions, Stephen Sackeur is a wonderful interviewer who does his research.The only question left to ask is this: wtf was John Key thinking accepting an interview from the one place that was going to truly sock it to him?

Stephen regularly makes the world’s most powerful people cringe in their chairs and only a few have truly stood their ground and fought with him – he always has an army of facts for any interview he does and isn’t afraid to follow up the 1st punch with a 2nd and 3rd…

Eddie (The Standard.org.nz)

god, he gets tetchy after a couple of questions… and then it gets worse.

“we’re 100% pure, relative to other countries”

and when he asks Key if he’s happy to have china owning Kiwi farmland

“well, we’re happy to have them as a major trading partner”

“that’s not what I asked you, is it?”

is there a link to the full interview?

Newsman ( NZ general Google Groups )

The interview is instructive in more ways than one. Good to have it archived in toto on the HDD.

New Zealanders will be overjoyed to know the entire BBC World audience has had an opportunity to discover and assess the calibre and character of the slither-tongued man who now runs the show here.

As is his habit, the thoroughly researched Sackur expertly conducted John Key through major New Zealand topics and issues, the responses to most of which Sackur received with a wholesome skepticism matching to perfection the style and substance of what came back at him.

As an example of the general tone Key brought to the broadcast, and for a revealing study of an inept New Zealand prime minister regaling his worldwide audience by gratuitously disavowing one of his own country’s top scientists, try this excerpt: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9480610.stm

(Note John Key’s embarrassed smirk the moment Sackur introduces the “100% Pure” topic)

Unsurprisingly, while the cattle-class NZ media went ape over John Key’s lame sidekick spot on the insubstantial Letterman a while back, this time they have been mute when it came to the potential gravitas of his one big chance: a long-form 25-minute encounter with the redoubtable Sackur on a universally accessible worldwide network.

I think most of us know this myth is a load of bollocks. The only factor that makes NZ apparently green is the incredible low population factor. It has a tiny population in regard to its land mass. Alas our rivers and lakes are terribly polluted and we have more coal than we can eat so that will be all dug up sold & exported or burned here. Many kiwi knobbers see it fit to drive huge 4 and 5 litre penis extenders and those that don’t push their cars to such limits speed wise they too are gas guzzlers. This is not a hit on Nz this is just how I see things and having been here 6 years I have seen a lot.

Mummybot (The Standard.org.nz)

Key’s answers were very telling taking on two flavours. The first was a typical denialist attack – discredit the source by saying it was that scientist’s ‘opinion’ and that he could find other opinions to refute it. His second type of reply was that there wasn’t an issue just ‘look out the window’ at the natural beauty.The first is disingenuous, the second is quite scary if that is his yardstick for conservation. It implies that so long as the green veneer is there then he is happy to sell the 100% NZ brand regardless of any environmental crises going on behind.

Easyway (Trademe)

The interviewer ripped into Key for his propaganda, spin, BS and incompetency.

No wonder Key is now scared of going in front of any host that might question him too hard and expose his ineptness. Wonder when he will front up in front of Mr John Campbell!

Proud Greenie (Yahoo NZ news)

So he’s admitting the damage caused by dairying while at the same time putting policies in place that encourage an increase in cow numbers? Hopefully international pressure can make this government red-faced enough to start taking action to preserve our reputation, if it’s not already beyond repair.

Iracisble (The Standard.org.nz)

The HardTalk interview has probably done more to boost Goff & Labour’s chances in the November election than any other media event in the past 2 & half years. My friends , scattered across the world wherever HardTalk screened, have all expressed a collective cringe at seeing such a pitiful performance from a NZ PM.

Key’s performance was one that demonstrated what quality interviewing is all about… the interviewer allowing the interviewee to put his own foot in his mouth and then gently probing so that the foot goes even deeper into the speaker’s throat.

There was no excuse for Key being so uninformed, so ignorant and so shallow apart from his own arrogant belief in his PR creation.

Peter S (The Dim Post)

Key must really appreciate (as PM and Minister for Tourism) at being dropped in the proverbial by over zealous admen. The 100% pure slogan is b/s and always has been. Perhaps being directly challenged by a BBC interviewer in one of NZ’s most important tourist markets will get him and the Govt. of their bums to actually do something about the uncontrolled pollution of rivers by dairy farmers.

BBC Questions New Zealand’s 100% Pure Image

Both Mike Joy and the NZ Green Party have questioned John Key’s position on  New Zealand’s 100% Pure branding.

Joy has challenged John Key to prove that New Zealand is 100% Pure.

.

New Zealand’s economically valuable “100% Pure” brand has been questioned in international media due to the pollution of our rivers and lakes, the Green Party said today.

“We must get real about cleaning up our rivers and lakes, because the world is beginning to realise that we aren’t living up to our clean green image,” said Dr Norman.

Dr Norman was responding to John Key’s interview yesterday on BBC News HARDtalk. During the interview (see video above) host Stephen Sackur commented that New Zealand is clearly not 100% Pure and cited that half of New Zealand lakes and 90% of our lowland rivers are classed as polluted.

“The clean green New Zealand brand is worth $18.4 billion, but this asset is at risk unless we take immediate action to restore our waterways.

“To be effective in the long-term, our brand must reflect reality,” said Dr Norman.

 “Yesterday, John Key admitted on BBC News that intensifying our dairying has impacted on our river quality, the same day his Government released a toothless version of the National Policy Statement on Freshwater (NPS). (ed. link here)

“The draft NPS required land owners to obtain a resource consent for land use intensification, but the Government bowed to polluter pressure and removed this requirement in the final version released yesterday.

“Nearly every report on water quality in New Zealand has identified land use intensification as the main cause of water quality decline in New Zealand, yet the Government has chosen not to regulate intensification.

“This decision will come back to haunt us. If we trash the environment we will trash our reputation and it will damage us economically sooner or later,” said Dr Norman.

You may also like

This video

BBC Hardtalk Roasts Key On 100% Pure Image – Update: Video

BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur roasted John Key over New Zealand’s 100% Pure brand image in a recent televised interview.

Most of us know that NZ 100% Pure is only an advertising slogan and that it has been dropped from the country’s marketing in favour of the 100% Pure You brand, but it is interesting nevertheless to watch the PM putting on his Minister of Tourism Hat and trying to defend the indefensible and outdated, much to Sackur’s amusement.

Watch an excerpt from the interview on the BBC’s website here and read what Kiwis think about it on Google groups and on Trademe

Update: The full interview has been posted on YouTube by aidanleenz.

Sackur called Key “the most inexperienced PM in New Zealand’s history ” who’d “never run a city let alone a ministerial department”

and asked why Key was telling the country’s young people to stay and make New Zealand great when he himself made his fortune working in London.

On Chinese investment in dairy farms, the relationship with the USA, Anti-nuclear status, Wikileaks, colonial history, the future of the Monarchy, Royal wedding  etc:

There is an absolute wealth of data demonstrating that New Zealand is not 100% Pure.  Key’s attempt to dismiss data as the ‘opinion’ of one highly regarded NZ academic, Mike Joy, comes across as avoiding  the issue for the sake of the cameras, instead of seizing the opportunity to admit there is a problem that his government is taking very seriously.

Update:  John Key was then roasted in Parliament over the interview, when he admitted he “couldn’t remember” what he said on BBC Hardtalk because he hadn’t watched it yet and that “one needs to balance the environment with the economy“.

But if NZ is 100% Pure doesn’t that mean the environment has to take priority 100%?

“NZ 50/50 Pure as long as the economy doesn’t suffer and the farmers are happy” doesn’t have the same nation branding advertising pull does it.

Key has come a long way since his “loosest slot machines in the Pacific Rim” stumbles but still has some way to go. Watch the Parliamentary roasting here. You may also like to read Pure Nonsense, by Brian Turner in the May 2010 NZ Listener magazine, excerpt:

New Zealand is definitely clean and green. Yeah, right.

“I wonder how many of us are sick of the extent to which New Zealanders delude themselves, and are willing to believe many of the most outrageous lies they are told. Like, for instance, this is a “clean and green” country, a place that is “pure” and often “pristine”…”

Back to the Hardtalk interview. Sackur quotes Mike Joy as saying

“We are delusional about how clean and green we are”

And you can see how he arrives at that conclusion.

For data about NZ’s pollution, its use of a wide range of pesticides and herbicides, and the country’s planned exploitation of fossil fuels please visit our Greenwash NZ page, here’s the first section from it.

Greenwash NZ

New Zealand’s ‘Green’ Credentials aren’t quite as good as they should be for a country with such a low population, much of NZ’s green reputation is little more than greenwashing used to sell produce and tourism.

In April 2011 a copy of the government’s draft energy strategy: Developing Our Energy Potential was released ‘mistakenly’ into the public domain. It quickly became evident that the present National government was placing far too much emphasis on the mining of fossil fuels in New Zealand.

The Green Party called the strategy which promoted coal and oil exploration, 19th century and said it put ‘petroleum and mineral fuel reserves (essentially oil, gas and coal) ahead of investing in renewable power sources and new technologies.

“…This strategy demonstrates how backwards-looking this Government is on energy. They clearly do not have a logical, coherent plan,” said Greens energy spokesman Kennedy Graham.

“On one of the first pages of the document, the strategy acknowledges that oil prices and the cost of greenhouse gases will rise. But instead of developing a plan to reduce our reliance on these unsustainable energy sources, it goes on to prioritise fossil fuels like offshore oil drilling and lignite – the dirtiest coal.

“It’s a short-sighted economic strategy that will ultimately impoverish New Zealand, and will undermine international efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

“New Zealand’s prosperity in the future will depend on investment in clean, green technology and sustainable jobs, not opening our shores to foreign companies to exploit a 19th century resource.”…” read more, including what the public think about the report

NZ government recently caved in to the oil industry by allowing seismic testing for oil in the Raukumara Basin. since then there have been vigorous protests by environmental groups within New Zealand, none of which have been effective in halting the exploration which has the support of the NZ government.

In August 2010Radio NZ obtained reports under the Official Information Act that showed “Petrobras … was awarded an exploration permit two months ago off the East Coast without any environmental scrutiny.According to the documents released, the decision was made on technical and economic grounds, and required the company only to show it would use good oilfield practices.” source

Mass penguin deaths on the beaches on the east coast of New Zealand have been attributed to Petrobras’ oil exploration work in the Basin. International research suggests that seismic testing is responsible for killing a range of sea creatures.

This month a Chinese backed, Australian mining company, Goldmining NL, revealed it had plans to explore for oil in the seabed off the Abel Tasman National Park, across much of Golden Bay and the NW point of the South Island. It is proposing drilling the seabed for oil and gas, as well as prospecting for coal in Golden Bay and developing Port Tarakohe. (source)

Pollution

The air at more than half of all the air sampling sheds in New Zealand fails quality tests, with much of the pollution caused by residential wood smoke during winter, even with proposed improvements 45% of the population will still be exposed to higher than acceptable levels of PM10s.

One of New Zealand’s rivers – The Manawatu – is among the most polluted in the world and many beaches suffer pollution from stormwater and waste water overflows making them unsafe to swim on. (more below, including videos and citations)

Tonnes of toxic herbicides and pesticides are dropped from helicopters over thousands of hectares of countryside every year, including the highly controversial and dangerous poisons 1080 (see 1080 posts) and Brodifacoum (a rat poison similar to warfarin) – neither of them are intended to be distributed from the air, they are supposed to be laid in covered bait stations. Weed killer  is also sprayed from helicopters over wide swathes of countryside in an effort to eradicate non-native plants such as gorse. Tourists, workers, farm animals, native fauna and pets have all been exposed to these toxins – sometimes with fatal consequences.

A new class of insecticides called  neonicotinoids are widely used in New Zealand. They are thought to be contributing to the rapid decrease in the honey bee population.  By 2008 the Environmental Risk Management Agency had licensed 23 neonicotinoid-based products, despite mounting evidence of the harm the neurotoxin was having on bees.

By May 2011 an alarming “bee colony collapse” had been observed over a six month period in New Zealand. In some places 30% of the population has disappeared. But despite some classes of neonicotinoid being banned in Italy, Germany and France there are no plans to curb its use in New Zealand. Because of the important role bees play in the pollination of crops Albert Einstein speculated that “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.”

Hundreds of hectares of land are polluted with toxic chemicals left behind after years of intensive fruit growing, chemical use and/or manufacture (Agent Orange, wood preservatives, heavy metals etc) Over time, as the use of orchards declined, the land was often sold on for residential housing development. Many homeowners are unaware that their houses are built on contaminated land. Councils are very reluctant to release information as it will have a negative impact on land values and there could be massive bills for remediation work and difficulties in disposing of the contaminated soils.

Drums of toxic chemicals were recently discovered beneath a children’s playground in Marfell, the site of New Plymouth’s former city refuse dump. The chemicals were tetrachlorobenzene and trichlorophenol, both used in the manufacture of herbicides.

Ivon Watkins Dow (now named Dow Agro Sciences)manufactured herbicides ’24D’ and ’245T’, used in equal part in the manufacture of the defoliant Agent Orange, at its Paritutu plant for use in the Vietman war. The dioxin contaminant TCDD within ’245T’ is considered to be highly toxic to humans. Exposure to dioxins is alleged to have resulted in an estimated 10% increase in cancer deaths in the New Plymouth area.

Over a 30 year time span 20 million litres of the 2 herbicides were sprayed in New Zealand to control gorse and other weeds. The NZ government was said to have subsidised the use of the herbicides and 245T was both produced and used in NZ long after other countries had banned them. Production in the USA ceased in 1979 but continued in New Plymouth until 1987

Sustainable Development

An example of joined up thinking with regards to sustainable development in New Zealand can be seen is the construction of a new school in the Remarkables, Queenstown.

It is the first new state primary school to have opened in the lower North Island since the 1970s cost $17.3 million to build but it was refused a grant to install an energy efficient, sustainable energy system. The school is now reliant on electricity and paying more than $10,000 a month with an estimated spend of $75,000 for the full year. The education ministry doesn’t fund electricity bills of that size and the shortfall must come from the school’s operating budget, or community fund raising.

Will sustainable development be a key factor in the rebuilding of Christchurch? we will be watching.