Chris Battershill: Marine scientist on the impact of Manawanui on Samoan sea life

Fears continue to grow surrounding the impact the Manawanui Defence Force ship sinking will have on Samoan sea life. 

The Navy says the ship - which sunk after hitting a reef on Saturday - had 950 tonnes of diesel fuel onboard. 

Samoan locals say turtles have perished and oil can be smelt on Samoan beaches, while officials are scrambling to assess the damage. 

Waikato University marine scientist Chris Battershill join Jack Tame with more. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
There is still concern about the environmental impact from the
Manamanui ship sinking off the coast of Sarmor. The Navy
says the ship, which sunk after hitting a reef on Saturday,
had almost one thousand tons of diesel fuel on board.
Salmon locals say turtles have perished and oil can be
smelt on some Salmoran beaches, but officials say that's probably
from the original sinking, and an assessment today of the

(00:24):
wreck shows, at least from the outside, no sign that
the vessel is currently leaking. Wykattle University marine scientist Chris
Battershill is with the suce evening kelder. Chris got a
nine hundred and fifty tons of diesel fuel. So just
how significant is that risk.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
It's a significant risk if it was lost very quickly
in a short period, and wouldn't you know, particularly if
there was a non shore wind at that time, so
that amount would be quite significant in coming ashore or
moving across a reef. Recent intelligence suggests that it's relatively

(01:04):
well contained on the ship, which is great news. So
if there's a way that it can be pumped out
as they did with the Arena, will be it in
slightly shallower depths, then there's every chance that that load
of diesel can be taken out of the environment.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
So Manawanui is currently sitting at about thirty meters. That's
how deep it is right now, which is, like you say,
slightly deeper than the arena, but obviously not out of
the reach of commercial and experienced divers. How complicated would
it be to try and pump that quantity of fuel
off the wreck.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
They did it for the arena in very very poor conditions.
The windows of opportunity were quite short because it's an
exposed location. There lots of open ocean of course coming in,
which is pretty much the same as being experienced in Zama,
where the Manawanui is understood that she was down at

(02:01):
around one hundred and fifty meters, however, which is quite
significantly deeper. If it's thirty meters, that's great news. That
is well within the reach of most salvage operations. Albeit
they'll need to have a decompression chamber in all of
the other ordnance on board for the salvage divers. Yeah,

(02:21):
but if it's a bit deeper, it gets trickier.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
No, I believe it is thirty I believe that the
Navy commodore has explained tonight that it's at about thirty
meters underwater off a reef, so we can go to
the Navy for confirmation. But obviously the shallower it is,
the better it is in terms of access for divers.
Obviously other conditions can affect things, are the currents, the
weather conditions, all those kinds of things. But the shallower
the better. They're looking to pump that fuel loft. How

(02:44):
long do they have how quickly do they need to
move if they want to get this fuel offt before
the vessel itself is corroded and the tanks holding the
fuel are more likely to be breached.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
The coroasion is shoe is probably not a significant one.
That vessel will lasts for a very long time underwater.
Even the main problem is at thirty meters it's still
probably within the reach of deep, deeper oceanic swells, and
as we experience with the Rena once again using that
as an example, it was those storm events, the cyclonic

(03:19):
events coming in with deep ocean swells that moved the
ship around and tended to beat it up quite severely
to the extent that it's we got to sway further
and further down the reef. When that's happening, yes, then
there's going to be issues structurally, and that's when there
could be other leaks opened up.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
So Nicola Willis told us last night, Manha Manui effectively
had third party insurance or the naval ship equivalent of
third party insurance. So the ship's not insured, but some
parts of the salvage and the response are insured. Although
we don't know for how much at the stage, but
give us some here. How much is an event like

(04:03):
this and trying to pump off the fuel the whole
response in salvage likely to cost.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Oh to be certainly around fifty to one hundred million,
I would think for oceanic work like that. I can't
quite recall what the arena cost in the end, but
they were also pulling under that vessel out of the water.
But I know it was the second most expensive ship

(04:29):
salvage operation in the world, next to the cost of Concordia.
It was many hundreds of millions, yeah, of dollars.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I mean, obviously some differences right with the arena of
the Arena was a larger container ship, and obviously that
the environmental differences as well. But that being said, it's
going to be an extremely expensive operation. I mean if
it was anything like that. So it's basically the cost
of the ship in the first place, isn't it. Hey,
thank you very much, Chris, appreciate your time. That is
why Cuttle University marine scientist Chris Battershill. Right now, it

(04:57):
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Speaker 1 (05:02):
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