With just two days until submissions on the resource consent application to leave the Rena wreck on the Astrolabe Reef close, a late flurry of submissions on the 'complex” application are expected.

Bay of Plenty Regional received an application from the Rena owners and insurers, acting under the Astrolabe Community Trust, to leave the remaining wreck on the reef in June.

Underwater shots from the Astrolabe Reef in July 2014. Supplied

On Friday council's 40-day submission's period on the application will close. Read the full application here.

From August 8, Rena's owners and insurers have five days to indicate if they want to take the proposal to an Environment Court hearing.

Tauranga City Council has already opted for a ‘neutral' submission on the application and the Government is also expected to lodge a submission.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council strategic communications manager Sue-Ellen Craig says council is not making any comment on submission numbers or next steps in the process until after the closing date.

'People actually wait until the last minute to put their submissions in,” says Sue-Ellen.

'Given the complexity of the application and the amount of scientific information that needs to be digested we are fully expecting that most submissions will arrive tomorrow or Friday.”

The container ship struck the Astrolabe Reef, about 25km off the coast of Tauranga, on October 5, 2011 spilling tonnes of oil that caused one of New Zealand's biggest environmental disasters.

The ship later broke apart on January 6, 2012 leaving the bow section wedged on the top part of the reef, while the aft section slid down.

A storm in March this year shifted the remaining sunken aft section further down the reef with the lowest part sitting 56 metres below the waterline, according to salvors Resolve. The bow is now cut down to one metre below surface at low tide with the bow and aft section now 100 metres apart.

Further parts of the bow section are now reported to have broken away and are lying on the reef at depths of up to -18metres.

Raw video footage on the Rena Resource Consent page shows tonnes of tangled wire, metal and debris lying on Astrolabe Reef.

It is estimated about 4000 tonnes of unrecovered debris remains on the reef with salvors describing it as a 'scrap yard”.

The images were released by the ship's owners and insurers to provide a snapshot as to what the underwater environment looks like and explain how difficult the salvage process is, says the site.

'The monitoring that happens on the Rena wreck is part of the application process; they [the owners and insurers] were required to do this,” says Sue-Ellen.

The applicants have applied for two consents under the Resource Management Act 1991 – the first is to leave the structure of the vessel as it is currently, and some associated debris, including containers and parts of the contents of those containers.

The second is for the discharge of contaminants under section 15b of the Resource Management Act, which includes the leaching of materials from the vessel and debris that is left behind.

'Salvage, recovery and wreck reduction work has reached the stage that the wreck no longer presents a hazard to navigation or is otherwise considered a hazardous ship. The owner seeks to abandon the wreck by leaving it in as a benign a state as is practicable,” says the application.