NZ oil spill disaster - some facts

just a few things I've put together from reading online...

• "It emerged yesterday that on the day the Rena struck the reef, Maritime NZ declined an offer of two inflatable barges which could pump up to 100 tonnes of oil at a time."

• Maritime Union general secretary Joe Fleetwood said he had been calling on the New Zealand Government to buy an emergency oil spill response vessel "for years'' but to no avail. "Now we're caught with our pants down and now we're looking to (salvage company) Svitzer to get their clean-up vessels from Singapore.''
  
  
• "This is huge. It will take a long, long time to clean it up - we've never seen anything on this scale before. It could take years" - Sustainable Coastline's director Sam Judd.
  
  
• "We stand on the brink of disaster if the salvage goes wrong," said Shane Wasik, NZ Underwater Association president and a local diver.

• Our reckless centre-right gvernment are talking about using a toxic substance to clean up. Rick Steiner, a veteran of the Gulf of Mexico spill last year, said the dispersant Corexit 9500 was not suited to near-shore waters. According to the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the use of Corexit during the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused people "respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders"