Five days after the grounding, a storm led to the leaking of 350 tonnes of oil from the vessel and the blackening of several western Bay of Plenty beaches.
The resulting clean-up effort involved more than 8,000 volunteers who collectively put in 24,000 hours to remove a large portion of the total 2,584 tonnes of oil contaminated sand and debris that was collected following the spill.
The story of how the response unfolded and lessons learnt will be shared by a team from Maritime New Zealand and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council at this week’s Asia Pacific’s oil spill preparedness and response conference Spillcon 2013, which gets underway today.
The team’s account will be among more than 20 specialist talks around oil spill response presented at the conference over the next four days.
Other speakers include representatives from the Australian Shipowner’s Association, ship salvage company Titan and the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority.
Topics covered during the conference will include regulating oil spill response for the offshore petroleum industry, new technologies to monitor marine pollution effects, implementation of recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry into the Montara wellhead incident, and the ongoing salvage of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the coast of Italy.
Spillcon 2013 brings together local, regional and global environmental and shipping representatives across industry, government and non-government organisations to provide an avenue to discuss oil spill cause and prevention, preparedness, response management and environmental issues.
It’s on until 12 April 2013 at the Cairns Convention Centre.
Media note: Interviews with speakers are available on request by contacting AMSA Media.