HALIFAX - The spill at Tufts Cove Generating Station happened seven weeks ago, but Nova Scotia Power says there is still weeks’ worth of cleanup to be done before all of the oil is out of the Halifax harbour.

Most of that cleanup, according to Nova Scotia Power Spokesperson Tiffany Chase, has to take place right in front of the station itself.

“There is an artificial rock barrier that is part of our plant, and we weren’t able to successfully clean the rocks in that area,” said Chase, “So what we’re going to have to do is replace them, so that work is ongoing now.”

The stretch of rocks is 150 meters long and will be replaced a section at a time, all the while ensuring that none of that remaining oil enters the harbor.

“We do still have a small amount of booming still in the water and that’s really as a precaution should any of the oil that’s on the rock that we’re removing make its way into the water that’s right adjacent to those rocks,” said Chase.

The spill happened on August 2 with the utility originally reporting five thousand liters had gone into the Halifax harbor.

It was later revealed that nearly four times that amount had actually leaked, sending 20 thousand liters into the waters and onto the shorelines surrounding the plant.

The Ecology Action Centre has expressed concerns about the spill since the beginning, and they still have many unanswered questions -- just last week during a shoreline clean up, staff found rocks in a nearby cove contaminated with oil.

“We are still waiting on the report from Nova Scotia Power about the cause of the spill, about how much it has cost, and how much of that cost is actually going to be passed on to ratepayers,” said Stephen Thomas of the Ecology Action Centre.

Nova Scotia Power says with both an investigation and the cleanup still ongoing, the exact cost is yet to be worked out.

Across the harbour this week in downtown Halifax, G7 Environment, Ocean and Energy Ministers from around the world had been meeting to talk about protecting the world’s oceans and moving to a low-carbon economy.

The contrast isn’t lost on Thomas, he says the only way to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again is a switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

He says that while there has been progress in this province on that from there is still much work to be done – much like there is work left to do with the cleanup at Tufts Cove.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Heidi Petracek