It was great to see many small blue penguins being released back onto the sea. Now free from the oil that had threatened to take their lives and cased pain and suffering. They were like lots of little :happy feet running down the beach. Also looked like a lot of triathlon swimmers starting a race. The Rena did not take the lives of these little birds.
Containers starting to come off Rena
Salvos are starting to get the containers off and remove them via barge to a safe place. they predict it will be a long slow job and estimate a limit of six a day dependent on weather.
Last of the oil pumped from Rena
It sounds like the last of the oil will soon have been pumped from the Rena. This means that there should be no more oil leaked into the sea. The beach clean up continues and will do for some time but should get easier.
More Oil Pumped Out
With more settled weather the salvos have once again moved to pump thr remainder of oil from the grounded container ship. Progress has been good but there is still something like 500 tons of oil left in the tanks.
Struggle to get oil off
It seems that every thing is against getting the oil off the ship wreck. Even with improved weather things are not going well. Pumps not working well or not at all and many other problems. You have to feel for those working on the ship and what must seem like an impossible mission.
Weather stops pumping of oil
Bad weather has halted the removal of oil from the container ship in the Bay of Plenty NZ. It seems that more oil spills will follow it all depends on the weather at present much of the oil is drifting out to sea but the weather is changeable and this may not be the case for very long.
Hope to start pumping oil from ship soon
The container ship should have the remainder of its oil pumped out soon. Weather forecast does not look good hope they can move significant oil before the weather breaks
Oil and containers
Oil has come ashore on the east coast in the Bay of Plenty. Many people have been cleaning up and tons of waste has been taken to the Waikato. Many feel the government was too slow to act and the problem escalated as a result. Containers have fallen from the ship and are also a major problem. Many people see this incident as a critical one and will not put it aside lightly. Votes will be influenced by inaction
Just in Time……
Well it looks as if the looming power crisis is off. The long awaited rain has come and the storage lakes are now more than 60% full. It is good that we will not face black outs. The infrastructure will cope and the proposed wind farms will assist in the future.
Petrol is still down and that will greatly assist. The general low… and talk of depression will at least be off – the tip of peoples tongues even if it is only for a short time. Some positive news has been badly lacking for some time.
Petrol down 4 cents today
For the first time some weeks petrol was down in price. This made the news and there was a lot of 
people at the pumps. The petrol prices have hit people hard in NZ particularly in the country and farming sectors. Costs have been up in food and other areas due to the transport component in each transaction. However the question is will it last? The bulk oil price has been up and down so much it is hard to be particularly hopeful. 