Smelter owner to review way it ships goods

New Zealand Aluminium Smelters is reassessing the way it ships dangerous goods after 21 of its containers are believed to have sunk with the container ship Rena.

Pacific Aluminium spokesman Anthony Havers yesterday said the company was reviewing its shipping processes following the Rena grounding and breaking up off the coast of Tauranga.

Pacific Aluminium owns the Tiwai Point smelter.

Twenty-one containers from the smelter containing cryolite, a product used in the smelting process, are believed to be on the sea floor after Rena's stern sank yesterday.

However, the smelter had received expert advice the material in the containers had low potential for environmental harm to the marine environment, Mr Havers said.

He was unsure how long it would take to reassess the processes.

Grant Dyson, spokesman for container recovery company Braemar Howells, said no-one knew exactly what happened to the containers from the smelter, but none containing dangerous goods had yet washed ashore, so he believed they had sunk.

The containers of cryolite were heavy and would be neutralised by the sea water, Mr Dyson said.

It is expected Rena's stern, which held an estimated 400 containers, will have to be cut up on the sea floor.

It has been grounded for more than three months.

Reports have suggested Rena may be left to become a dive wreck, but Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee would say oply that the Government's position was the "wreck was to be removed".

Svitzer salvage master Paul Van't Hof said any efforts to remove the wreck could be made only once the weather cleared. He said using explosives to knock off part of the Astrolabe Reef to free the bow section was another option.

Fairfax understands the front is effectively "cemented" to the reef. A source said the use of explosives was a possibility during the initial weeks after the grounding but was now unlikely.

"We have not felt a significant movement of the bow," Mr Van't Hof said.

"But the safety of our divers is the most important thing and right now it is too unsafe for anyone to work there."

Because the weather was so unpredictable at present, it was also near-impossible to predict where further debris would wash up, he said.

Volunteer crews scrambled yesterday to clean up debris that washed ashore at Waihi Beach and Mt Maunganui.

Large piles of broken bits of wood dotted the main beach at the foot of the Mount before being loaded into trucks by cleaning crews.

Oil that leaked from Rena yesterday is expected to hit Matakana Island and Matata later today.

Svitzer has now scrambled to do what it can to contain the oil and prevent any further leaks.

Maritime New Zealand national on-scene commander Alex Van Wijngaarden said booming operations and cleanup volunteers had been reactivated.

The Adopt A Beach programme had also been put back in place, he said.

Meanwhile, Environment Southland communications co-ordinator Michele Poole is again working with the media team as part of the Rena response in Tauranga.

Ms Poole is the only Environment Southland staff member working there at this stage.