John Cronin BOP Regional Council Chairman www.boprc.govt.nz

With the sentencing of the Master and Second Officer of the Rena last week we are again reminded of the significant impact this event has had on our community and our environment.

It's been a devastating ordeal for everyone during these past seven months, but I'm confident there has been a silver lining.

I have been amazed by the way our community banded together and got stuck in to clear oil off our beaches. There was, and still is, a brilliant community spirit shown. The people of Tauranga and particularly iwi were prepared to get together and do what needed to be done to get our beaches clean again.

It's this action which has been somewhat of a legacy. Some of the ‘Adopt a Beach' teams have chosen to continue to take care of a patch of beach and collect rubbish, and iwi groups are working together and with government as a result of the Rena grounding.

Into the future, the Rena Recovery team is focussed on returning our environment to the way it was before the disaster. One thing it's going to result in is a wealth of knowledge we have about our coastline and marine environment that we didn't have before. While the circumstances were definitely not anything we would have wished for, I'm confident that the amount of understanding we have gained about our coast, and also on oil spill response, will be 10 times what it was before.

It's going to be a long recovery. Overall, the response is estimated to have cost the government about $37 million, and negotiations to recover this expenditure from the owners are ongoing. In court there is still a Resource Management Act charge pending. So we have some way to go until we can close the door on this disaster.

Slowly but surely we will recover from this event. With the spirit of our communities and our collaborative approach, we will get things back to the way they were and grow from the experience.

If you have a view on this or on any other regional council matter, please e-mail me: [email protected]