Insurers of ship to get $l00,000 bill

Press, 9 July 1981, Page 2

Insurers of ship to get $l00,000 bill

PA , Wellington The Ministry of Transport will present insurers of the Pacific Charger with a bill of more than $lOO,OOO for costs incurred in refloating the freighter off Baring Head. The Director of Marine (Mr Hugh Jones) said costs incurred so far were just over $lOO,OOO. This covered the cost of upgrading the access road along the coast from Eastbourne, causeway construction, use of the Ministry’s oil-pumping equipment, helicopter hire to ferry people to and from the ship, and Fire Service and Ministry of Works labour.

The final bill could be higher but this depended on

the amount of restoration work that was needed on the coast.

A special committee consisting of representatives of the Ministries of Transport and Works and the Commission for the Environment is expected to decide today what work should be done.

The commission’s representative, Dr Philip Tortell, said the committee was looking at what to do with the access road, the remnants of the causeway, the scar at the base of a cliff face where hard fill was extracted, and disposal of oily waste along the high water mark.

He said advice had been sought from various experts

and it now had to be decided whether restoration was possible without causing further damage and whether the work was likely to have any beneficial effects.

The Ministry of Works resident engineer at Trentham, Mr Grant Hardy, said the causeway had completely disappeared apart from a few large rocks. Mr Paul Bluett, of the Ministry of Transport, said he felt burial on site was the best way of disposing of oilsoaked flotsam. As for the scar at the base of the cliff, he believed that it should be left. In time Nature would do its own restoration.