Source: Radio New Zealand
The spill in Akaroa Harbour. Facebook/Environment Canterbury
A wildlife expert has serious concerns for dolphins and seabirds after a navy ship spilled hundreds of litres of oil into Akaroa Harbour yesterday.
About 200-300 litres of lubricating oil leaked from the HMNZS Te Kaha on Sunday morning, due to a defect to an oil cooler on the ship’s starboard engine.
The defence force said the ship had been in Akaroa Harbour doing a training exercise, and the source of the leak had been found and was no longer leaking.
Otago University professor of zoology Liz Slooten said seabirds could have their feathers covered in oil, causing them to lose their insulation, sink, drown or be unable to catch fish.
She said the risk for marine mammals was breathing in polluted fumes, getting oil in their eyes, or eating contaminated fish.
“There’s a whole bunch of health effects that will follow on from these animals taking in oil, or diesel or other petrochemicals, so it’s a really serious problem.”
She said bottlenose dolphins had been seen to lose teeth after swimming in contaminated waters in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, when a massive 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the sea.
Slooten said it was concerning this was the second spill in the Harbour in the past two months, with more than 2000 litres of marine diesel fuel spilling from the Black Cat Cruises boat on 31 January.
“So now we’ve had two oil spills in a marine mammal sanctuary, and these dolphins are already seriously under threat – mostly from fishing impacts.”
Slooten said more needed to be done to stop spills happening, and when they did, there needed to be an “immediate professional response”, rather than the current inadequate one.
Most of the oil cleaned up – council
But Canterbury Regional Council coast and harbours manager Guy Harris said teams had successfully cleaned up most of the oil today through absorbent booms.
“We think we probably got about 200 litres – so depending on how much went in there, we’ve either got nearly all of it, or two-thirds of it at the worst.”
“Definitely by the end of today [Sunday] we were doing sweeps and getting nothing at all on the booms.”
It was not a large spill, he said, but the oil was quite “toxic” and “thick” for wildlife. Its thickness made it easier for teams to pick up.
Harris said there had been no reports of oiled wildlife on Sunday, but Ecan would keep observing this week and next.
“Our response systems are great, we’re trained by MPRS, the Marine Protection Response Service – we’re experienced, we get to as many spills as we can.”
The deputy harbourmaster will be out on the water early this morning assessing conditions and deciding on the plan for today.
Wainui Beach had been closed to swimming yesterday by the council, and the council would be assessing whether that was needed today, Harris said.
A defence force spokesperson said the ship’s company has been working with the harbour master since 8 in the morning on Sunday to contain and clean up the slick.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
