Maritime New Zealand has today reduced the emergency response to the grounding of the Rena from a national to regional level.

MNZ National On Scene Commander Rob Service, who has been involved in the response since the ship first grounded on the Astrolabe Reef on October 5 last year, announced the downgrade from Tier Three to Tier Two today.

The Smit Borneo and the bow section of the wreck on May 2. Photo: MNZ

It means responsibility for ongoing monitoring and any future oil spill clean ups are now the responsibility of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

Maritime NZ says the decision is made in consultation with the regional council after analysis of several factors.

Based on regular assessments the threat of a further significant oil spills from the wreck is minimal, and regular surveys of previously polluted beaches confirm the amounts coming ashore are now so low that clean ups are not warranted.

Rob says the transition marks a real milestone in the response to the Rena grounding and is testimony to many months of hard work by the oil spill response team.

'This has been an amazing effort and we have seen some incredible team work, expertise and hard graft, put in by so many people.

'At the start of this response we had international oil spill response professionals assisting us, we had the army out in their hundreds cleaning these beaches, and of course we had many, many volunteers giving up their time for the beaches they love.

'The local councils and local iwi also played huge roles in responding to this incident.

'Over time, this massive effort has downsized to the point where in recent weeks we have had just a few oil spill response experts surveying and re-surveying the affected areas to assess whether we were ready to reduce from Tier 3 to Tier 2. It's a real achievement to reach this point.”

Tauranga residents Shane and Megan Tofts came across debris from the Rena at Great Barrier Island this week.

Rob says despite the downgrade the oil spill response is not over.

'Members of the public may still find residual oil on beaches from time to time – this is to be expected and we encourage people to continue to report oil sightings to the 0800 OIL SPILL line.”

The downgrade also means a move for MNZ in Tauranga from the incident command centre in Greerton to a smaller space in Mount Maunganui.

Svitzer salvors are continuing to cut up containers on board the wreck to enable the contents to be removed by helicopter.

Continuing calm weather has permitted dive operations around the submerged stern section to locate and remove bags of debris from the seabed around the wreck.

Braemar Howells has four recovery teams working on coastal Coromandel Beach and the Barrier, to take advantage of the good weather.

Plastic beads washed ashore in Whangapoua.

A motorised barge has been in operation as the ‘mother ship' for smaller vessels, which has been ferrying debris to it gathered by shore teams - ranging from wheelbarrow parts and small amounts of timber to noodle packets and plastic beads.

Braemar NZ Operations Manager Neil Lloyd says a collection of the larger debris from beaches in the Tairua area including Sailor's Grave and Pauanui, is expected to be completed by Sunday.

Two staff are working on Matakana Island, carrying out a grid survey of the 23kms of beaches, planning an operation to vacuum up the remaining plastic beads. A similar operation is planned for Motiti.

Recovered containers brought ashore by Braemar is now 769. This leaves an estimated 201 containers in the bow section, most of them empty, and a further 358 in the aft section or on the seabed nearby.