By PHILIP ENGLISH
A five-kilometre oil slick suspected of being from the wreck of the bullion carrying Niagara was breaking up north of the Mokohinau Islands in the outer Hauraki Gulf yesterday.
The Second World War wreck of the liner, Niagara, was the victim of a German mine and is lying about midway between the Hen and Chicken and Mokohinau islands off Bream Head.
An Auckland Regional Council maritime officer, Hans Swete, said the slick was inspected from the air yesterday morning about 0.5km north of Mokohinau and was considered to be no longer a major threat to the environment.
The slick was about one metre wide.
"It is very milky and opaque with no discernible edges which means it's basically gone...It was not gluggy and gooey and all those horrible things we think about with oil spills."
Mr Swete did not know if the oil came from the passenger steamer Niagara sunk in June,1940 but he said it was possible.
Environmentalists and fishermen have been concerned that oil on board the ship 120m down has been escaping for some time. They fear a major ecological disaster if bunker oil surfaces. The Niagara could have been carrying thousands of tonnes of the heavy oil.
The Maritime Safety Authority has taken samples from some earlier slicks for testing but no results have been published.
Mr Swete said the oil in the latest slick was light and might have come from trucks reported to have been on board the ship destined for Suva with 349 passengers and crew on board - all of whom survived.
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