Rena update #231

Salvage (Resolve Marine)
1. • This week saw the first sections cut and removed from the fore section of the Rena, with the Bell 214 heavy-lift helicopter completing 14 separate lifts to the barge Kapua.
2. • The barge made its first landing in Tauranga yesterday with an estimated 40 tonnes of steel, which included deck equipment and pieces of winches from the fo’c’sle.
3. • Work is continuing with the modifications to the helicopter landing platform, and pre-cutting of upper decks, fo’c’sle deck, and equipment.
4. • Helicopter-to-barge transfers will continue next week.

Braemar Howells/Unimar Update
• Braemar Howells/Unimar teams will be heading out to sea today to attempt to recover more Rena containers from the seabed – these at depths greater than 50 metres
• Since last week eight containers have been recovered. All had been rigged by a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and many still carried their contents, including one container loaded with cans of baked beans and chocolate rice.
• The recovery of those eight containers brings the total number of containers retrieved to 977. (There were 1368 containers on board when the Rena ran aground in October last year.)
• Clean-up work continues on beaches, with 14 bags of predominantly beads, recovered from Matakana Island this week. Clean-up teams are also working in the Coromandel.
• Debris recovery using a Unimar barge is also continuing at sea around the Rena where container flotsam and scrap steel has been collected this week.

Oil spill response

• The oil spill response has been reduced from a Tier 3, or national level, to Tier 2, or regional level, response. Any queries about the oil spill response should now be directed to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

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