A boat in trouble at Westport leaked thousands of litres of fuel oil in the town’s harbour on Saturday, forcing authorities to mop up contaminated water.
Westport social media was awash yesterday with outrage at diesel having spilled into the harbour and the nearby Buller River at the weekend but the impact looked worse than it was, the West Coast Regional Council said.
Compliance manager Chris Barnes said he was informed on Sunday morning by the Buller Port harbour master a fishing boat had limped into the harbour the previous night, taking on water.
A regional environmental response team in conjunction with the port then undertook a cleanup of about 2500 litres of fuel mixed with seawater into large containers, between 7pm and 9pm on Saturday, Mr Barnes said.
He visited the spill site on Sunday morning to further assess the situation and saw further evidence of fuel residue mixed with seawater lingering within the harbour basin — estimated to be about 200 litres.
This was in the margins of the water, mainly under the mooring area for the fishing boats.
"There is no issue with anything else leaking."
At this point no blame was being apportioned but the matter was "still under investigation", Mr Barnes said.
Westport harbour master Domonic Venz said the vessel leaking fuel was local and now stable.
It had apparently recently come into its current owner’s hands, he said.
The authorities had done their best to minimise the impact.
Mr Barnes said the regional council has three people in Westport trained to handle water-borne fuel spills immediately, including one from fishing company Talleys, and two from the Buller District Council.
Just a tea cup of diesel or hydraulic fluid falling into water could "look a lot worse than it is".
The visual impact of a fuel spill on the water was very high and this raised emotions, Mr Barnes said. acknowledging the social media concern.
"We will follow up. We had one of our senior staff go up yesterday to make a further assessment to make sure nothing further was coming from the source."
The council was mandated by Maritime NZ to handle any such spills and investigate them.
Mr Barnes said at this point the entire region had 10 accredited fuel spill responders — mainly regional council staff supplemented by the three district councils.
By Brendon McMahon
