THE owner of the second ship to lose containers off the NSW coast in recent years has been ordered to search for its missing cargo a month after it went overboard.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has issued the direction to the APL England's owner, identifying a priority search area of about 1000 square kilometres that spans an offshore area between the Illawarra and southern Sydney.
The watchdog said drift modelling and analysis of where the cargo had been spotted indicated "missing containers could be in this area at water depth of up to 200 metres".
"Containers within the search area pose the most immediate environmental threat and may present a safety hazard for commercial fishers," it said.
The declaration of the search area follows cargo from the ships washing ashore on the Central Coast.
AMSA general manager Mark Morrow said 15 containers had been found so far, including those that came ashore or were towed in after they were seen off the coast.
That leaves 35 unaccounted for.
"The owner's and operator's responsibility to clean-up the mess left behind by their ship does not end at the water's edge," Mr Morrow said.
"We have only just finished cleaning-up more than 60 containers and their contents from the seafloor off Newcastle after Yang Ming's ship YM Efficiency lost containers back in June 2018.
"That is not a pollution legacy that any respectable ship owner or operator would want to leave behind in their wake."
Mr Morrow said he anticipated the owner and operator to respond with a detailed search plan in coming days given failure to respond was an offence under Australian law.
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