Government remains unmoved by Niagara oil spill threat

Sunken treasure isn’t normally a topic that arises at an Auckland Council meeting, but the tantalising idea that there is still gold bullion at the bottom of the sea off Bream Head was discussed this month.

The Hauraki Gulf Forum is again urging council to advocate more strongly to central government to extract the oil that remains on the RMS Niagara, which sank after hitting a line of German mines, laid across the northern entrance of the Hauraki Gulf during World War II.

The Niagara was secretly carrying 590 gold bars, valued at £2,500,000, a payment from the United Kingdom to the then-neutral United States for munitions.

While the only loss of life was apparently the ship’s cat, the gold bars remained in situ until 1941, when 555 were salvaged. A a further 30 were brought up in 1953, leaving five bars unaccounted for.

At a council meeting on August 1, Cr Greg Sayers, whose father Alan was an Auckland reporter who went down with the second salvage team, told the meeting that there was technology now to extract the oil and the gold could be the incentive to make the effort.

Mayor Wayne Brown agreed the economics might be in favour of it.

“The oil is probably worth as much as the gold was when it sank all those years ago,” he said.

Although Maritime NZ says it does not know how much oil remains on the wreck, Gulf Forum executive officer Alex Rogers believes it could be up to 1600 tonnes.

It has been described as a “ticking ecological time bomb”, which could cause an oil spill far worse than the Rena, that hit Astrolabe Reef, off Tauranga, in 2011.

Rogers says the ship is hitting its peak leak period and it is time to ramp up pressure on the government.

The forum wants Cabinet to approve funding so that Maritime NZ can coordinate a full non-invasive survey of the wreck to produce an accurate cost-benefit and risk assessment report.

Cr Mike Lee said it had been difficult to get a government of any colour to take action on the wreck.

Maritime NZ told Mahurangi Matters that it has a specific response plan in place in the event of an oil spill from the Niagara.

The last partial visual surveys of the wreck were done by the Royal NZ Navy in 2021 and 2022.

“Future visual surveys may be undertaken as resources and approvals allow,” a spokesperson said.

However, an Official Information Request for the survey findings showed that the exercise was primarily part of an offshore remotely operated vehicle training course.

It noted that although there were no oil leaks from the wreck, an oil slick was visible on the surface.

“This is consistent with previous sightings of oil in this location,” the spokesperson said. “The small quantities of oil that have been reported could not be effectively contained or recovered using conventional oil spill responses. These low volumes of surfacing oil dissipate naturally, with limited environmental impact.”

The Navy survey found that there was no obvious deterioration in the wreck since the last survey in 2021.

The Niagara lies on her side between the Hen and Chicken and Mokohinau Islands, at a depth of about 120 metres.