Contaminated sites in the seas

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The term contaminated sites in the seas is a form of water pollution that refers to local or regional accumulations of hazardous or pollutants in the oceans of the earth, which in the past were brought into these waters in large quantities or disposed of in them. These substances pollute the earth's maritime ecosystems . Parts of the sea-earth crust show changes that are harmful to health or the environment in the area of ​​their top layer on the seabed and on the biogenic reef formations , which means that a minimum quality based on scientific standards is no longer given. This particularly affects the marine fauna and flora that live on the ocean floor, especially microorganisms and living things that feed on them. In special cases, these contaminated sites can also pose a threat to human life or to shipping .

Sinking of Japanese ammunition in Singapore

Ordnance

Explosive ordnance is still being dumped in the world's oceans. After the world wars, rifle cartridges as well as sea ​​mines and torpedoes equipped with up to half a ton of highly toxic explosives were dumped in the European seas . Often the metal shells of these explosive devices are already so badly corroded that explosives crumble out and threaten the marine environment.

North and east Sea

According to estimates by NABU, between 400,000 and 1.3 million tons of conventional ammunition were suspected to be the dangerous legacy of two world wars on the bottom of the North and Baltic Seas in 2008 . A more recent list by the Ministry of Energy and Environment in Schleswig-Holstein shows in the report Ammunition pollution in German marine waters - inventory and recommendations - as of 2011 for the ammunition dumping areas and contaminated areas in Germany alone. The estimate for conventional ammunition is, however, seen as not very reliable, whereas the exposure to chemical weapons is known more precisely. According to this, for the area of ​​the German North Sea coast there are even 1.3 million tons and for the area of ​​the German Baltic Sea coast 300,000 tons of conventional ammunition in seven ammunition dumping areas in the North Sea and 8 in the Baltic Sea. Another 21 areas in the German part of the North Sea as well as 50 areas contaminated with munitions and 21 suspected areas in the Baltic Sea are added. The German tidal flats are also affected. Explosive ordnance, conventional ammunition and weapons in the form of grenades , bombs , mines, bazookas and cartridges were sunk in large quantities in the sea after the Second World War . It can be assumed that there are a total of 18 munitions dumping areas (MVG) in the coastal waters of the North and Baltic Seas. The total amount of ammunition is unknown. Some of such ammunition has already been recovered, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of the construction of offshore wind farms and the laying of cables through the sea, salvage and detonation of pieces of ammunition have recently been carried out whenever this has stood in the way of the corresponding construction project.

In the Danish territorial waters bordering Denmark in the southern exit of the Little Belt there was a larger ammunition dumping area (MVG), from which a subset of 1,000 t of Tabu shells was recovered in 1959 and 1960 and then sunk again in the Bay of Biscay .

In the Schleswig-Holstein North Sea south of the island of Helgoland, around 6000 grenades from the Second World War were sunk (90 t in the Helgoland hole ), which were originally filled with the warfare agent tabun . Recovery of this ammunition was rejected after a thorough examination by experts from the state of Schleswig-Holstein, as this would be associated with a considerable risk to the health of the recovery forces and an immediate danger to uninvolved persons or the environment due to the rapid chemical conversion and dilution processes in the Sea water is not expected. It is possible that some of the ammunition has already been thrown overboard on trips to MVGs and is therefore scattered.

After the World Wars, the British Navy sank ammunition and chemical warfare agents in the sea in the neighboring European Arctic Ocean. The exact amount and distribution is unknown, but it is certain that a - probably smaller - part ended up in the North Sea. In the area of ​​environmental protection, the European Arctic Ocean falls primarily under the OSPAR Convention.

Environmental impact

To date, only a few studies have been carried out to assess the effects of ordnance on the marine environment. In Germany, the Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Areas (MLUR) of the State of Schleswig-Holstein initiated analyzes in coastal waters and in September 2008 set up the “Munitions Working Group” together with the Ministry of the Interior. It is intended to create a comprehensive picture of the situation for the ammunition stored in the German North and Baltic Seas. In a first step, it was generally established that ammunition lying exposed on the sea floor poses the problem of corrosion and gradual release of pollutants, but that there is significant pollution of the affected coastal water bodies or the territorial seas within the meaning of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) or of the Schleswig-Holstein Water Framework Directive Ordinance through which ammunition is currently not yet seen.

As a result of progressive corrosion, ammunition constituents can therefore be released. According to the state authorities of Schleswig-Holstein, however, this is accompanied by a slow release of pollutants that is likely to be locally limited and only in a small or very small part of a body of water. The latter is due, among other things, to the very different levels of corrosion of the individual ammunition bodies. According to the investigations, the state of the munitions sunk is different and depends on the physicochemical conditions at the dump site, the material and the original wall thickness of the ammunition. Chemical agents are largely regarded as substances hazardous to water . Most of them also have a high toxicity [for humans and animals] and a high ecotoxic potential to represent primarily suspected carcinogenic ( carcinogenic ), mutagenic ( mutagenic ) fertility impairing or the unborn child ( toxic for reproduction ) adverse effects to show (→ CMR substance ). The possibility of bioaccumulation , i.e. accumulation in all living beings, including humans, is not ruled out in principle, but concrete scientific results were not available in 2011. A permanent observation with monitoring of the marine environment for chemical compounds typical of warfare agents and their effects on marine ecology has not yet taken place.

There are at least two ammunition depots in this area. In 2007, water and sediment samples were taken in the area of ​​the Kolberger Heide ammunition dumping area . According to appendix two of the Bund Länder AG, around 18,000 large maritime explosives could have been sunk in this area after the war. Although ammunition destruction has been undertaken until recently, a significant number of large explosive devices are likely to remain in the area.

However, there are currently warnings about the incendiary bombs from the Second World War , some of which are destroyed, in the Baltic Sea, especially in the area of ​​the island of Usedom. Bathers, snorkelers and beach walkers have found white phosphorus from the bombs on the beaches of Usedom in recent years, which can be misinterpreted and collected as "amber" in its appearance. This leads to dangerous situations, since phosphorus chunks ignite of their own accord after drying, which leads to accidents that do not affect beach holidaymakers who are adequately informed.

According to the environmental groups NABU, the Society for the Protection of Marine Mammals and the Society for the Rescue of Dolphins, trinitrotoluene is released in explosive particles. They could be transported to beaches by the currents or ingested by mussels and thus end up in the food chain. This danger has not yet been investigated.

Subaquatic warfare agents were mainly responsible for accidents and incidents resulting in death in the period after the Second World War until the 1960s, after which the number of fatalities decreased. In construction projects such as the construction of offshore facilities, the laying of pipelines and fairway adjustments, as well as fishing with bottom trawls, there are still dangers.

It also happens that gun wool is washed up. The last such incident occurred in the summer of 2012.

Earthquake measuring devices regularly register detonations in the sea.

Radioactive substances

Nuclear waste dump

Radioactive waste could legally be dumped in the sea until this procedure, at least for solids, was banned by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 1994 . By then, all nuclear waste- producing countries had sunk significantly more than 100,000 tons of radioactive waste in the sea in less than 50 years.

The US has admitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that between 1946 and 1970 it had sunk over 90,000 containers of radioactive waste off its coasts.

According to the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the IAEA , 9 states dumped a total of 114,726 tons of nuclear waste in 222,732 barrels in 15 locations in the Northeast Atlantic by 1982.

The British contributed the largest share of this with 80%, followed by Switzerland, which up until 1982 dumped low and intermediate level waste as well as radioactive waste from medicine, industry and research in the North Atlantic under the leadership of the OECD. Several hundred tons of nuclear waste from Germany were disposed of in the sea - Division III B4 in the Federal Ministry for Scientific Research initiated the first international dumping action. In 1967, Germany, England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands dumped a total of 10,895 tonnes of low and medium level radioactive waste 400 kilometers off the coast of Portugal . The German nuclear waste came from the Gesellschaft für Kernforschung mbH in Karlsruhe. More international dumps followed.

The public did not know about it for decades. It was not until the 1980s that Greenpeace drew attention to the problem with spectacular actions. In 2000 Greenpeace published underwater images of bursting and holey nuclear waste cans that were found at a depth of about 100 meters in the English Channel . In the same year, the Federal Research Institute for Fisheries examined the German dumping ground in the Iberian Atlantic Basin and found in its final report that "the radioactivity released from the waste containers has reached the biosphere". The last investigations in the dumping areas were carried out in 2005, but the measurement results were unusable due to technical problems. Fish is caught intensively there.

The IAEA is currently (2011) working on an updated report on alpha , beta and gamma emitters in submerged radioactive material.

Nuclear waste discharges

The direct discharge of radioactive waste water into the sea is still legal and is still practiced: the La Hague reprocessing plant flushes 400 cubic meters of radioactive waste water into the English Channel every day through a four and a half kilometer long pipe . In Sellafield , too, radioactive waste water is discharged into the Irish Sea quite legally . These discharges exceed the discharges from La Hague for almost all nuclides .

Environmental impact

According to the IAEA, plutonium was detected in fish from the dumping areas as early as 1992. According to a report by the International Commission for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North Atlantic ( OSPAR ) from April 2010, increased concentrations of plutonium 238 were detected in water samples, in sediment and in fish from the dumping areas. In some places the concentrations of plutonium 239, plutonium 240, americium 241 and carbon 14 in the water were also increased. According to OSPAR, this indicates leaky barrels.

The ARD political magazine " Report Mainz " reported on November 1, 2011 about the contaminated sites in the Atlantic. This report sparked reactions in the German Bundestag. The Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND) asked the federal government to examine the retrieval of the nuclear waste barrels. The documentary "Nuclear Waste: Seabed Final Storage" also deals with the topic and names increased cancer rates in and around Sellafield , which the British government is concealing. After the findings of the authors of the television documentary were broadcast in advance, there were parliamentary inquiries in the German Bundestag, which the federal government answered by announcing an investigation.

According to the Federal Environment Ministry, the radioactivity concentrations measured in the fish would only “lead to doses in the nanosievert range” if they were consumed. This dose is far below the natural radiation exposure of people in Germany (effective dose of 2.4 millisievert per year).

Chemical dumping

Since January 1990 the dumping of dilute acid has been banned in the North Sea.

Sinking of offshore platforms in maritime waters

All over the world, offshore platforms that are no longer used are being sunk into the sea.

In the Gulf of Mexico alone , around 100 oil platforms have to be disposed of every year. Onshore scrapping is quite expensive. After the oil fields have been exhausted, for example, there is at least the theoretical possibility of sinking the production platform (see e.g. Brent Spar ) and in this way creating an artificial coral reef . Due to the heavy pollution of such an industrial plant, this disposal method can hardly be implemented without further damaging the environment, which is usually already polluted. For this reason, the 15 states participating in the OSPAR conference in 1998 decided to ban oil platforms in the North Atlantic from being dumped .

Platforms from other uses may, however, continue to be sunk.

Jürgen Rullkötter , Professor of Geochemistry, believes that a controlled dismantling of all platforms in the North Sea is not possible because they are too massive. As an alternative, it was discussed to cover the platforms with foil and sand and then to sink rocks onto them. This would only delay the environmental impact. Rullkötter points out that there are still residues of oil or asphalt-like material in the tanks that cannot be easily pumped off. The company Shell wants some of their platforms from the Brent oilfield to determine by 2012 to give up (Brent Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta Brent) and attempts cost-effective solutions for its disposal.

Recovery of old ammunition from the sea

The Japanese company KOBELCO is one of the few existing companies in the world that is able to professionally recover chemical weapons ammunition from the sea at a depth of up to 150 meters. Such ammunition recovery was carried out in the fairway of the port of Tonda in Yamaguchi prefecture and in the surrounding area. Many other states have so far not gone as far as Japan to salvage ammunition on a larger scale from the sea and then render it harmless on land and dispose of it.

literature

  • Eckhardt-Herbert Arndt: The North and Baltic Seas are still paved with old ammunition . In: Hansa ISSN  0017-7504 Vol. 149 (2012) H. 2, pp. 52-55.
  • John MR Bull: The deadliness below: weapons of mass destruction thrown into the sea years ago present danger now - and the Army doesn't know where they all are. In: The Daily Press (Hampton Roads, Virginia), October 30, 2005 (English), also reproduced on the Internet on the "Common Dreams" online portal at: www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1030-09.htm
  • Geoffrey Carton, Kathleen Ciolfi, Mike Overfield: Echoes of World War I: chemical warfare materials on the Atlantic coast. In: Sea history ISSN  0146-9312 Vol. 133 (2010), pp. 14-18 (English).
  • Gianluca Di Feo: Veleni di stato: che fine hanno fatto le armi chimiche e batteriologiche sperimentate nei laboratori del Duce? ... (Poisons of the State; ital.) BUR Rizzoli, Milano 2010, ISBN 978-88-17-03715-0 (Italian) (A book, among other things, about the contamination of the sea around the Italian mainland with warfare ammunition ).
  • Marc Koch, Stefan Nehring: Old military pollution in the German coastal waters - Proposals for remediation strategies in the context of the European Water Framework Directive. In: Rostock Marine Biological Contributions (2005) H. 17, pp. 39–54.
  • Stefan Nehring: Ammunition sinking during the Weimar Republic: sunk and forgotten. In: Waterkant Vol. 24 (2009) H. 3, pp. 8-12.
  • Uwe Wichert: Ammunition in the sea: a permanent or a periodic problem? In: Marine Forum Vol. 5 (2012), pp. 25-27.

Broadcast reports

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NABU: Danger in the depths - contaminated ammunition in the North and Baltic Seas . In: "Nature Conservation Today", 4/08 of October 31, 2008.
  2. ↑ www.munition-im-meer.de
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g State of Schleswig-Holstein, Ministry for Energy Turnaround, Agriculture, Environment and Rural Areas : Ammunition pollution in German marine waters ( Memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (short version)
  4. ↑ Angela Schmid: Ordnance: Bomb cemeteries under water disrupt the offshore construction. Wirtschaftswoche online, "Green Economy" section, September 8, 2015
  5. ↑ Stefan Nehring: The poisonous legacy before Helgoland: Federal government answers inquiry about 6000 tabun grenades; a comment. In: Waterkant Vol. 24 (2009) H. 4, pp. 17-19
  6. ^ Paul A. Tyler: Ecosystems of the Deep Oceans: Ecosystems of the World . Elsevier, 2003, ISBN 0-444-82619-X , p. 434.
  7. ↑ schleswig-holstein.de: ordnance and warfare agents in the sea ( Memento from December 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Süddeutsche.de: Contaminated sites off the coast - Explosives on the Baltic Sea bottom , November 28, 2008.
  9. ↑ New York Times: Ban Is Now in Force On Nuclear Dumping , Published February 22, 1994, Accessed November 27, 2015
  10. ↑ Leaking nuclear waste cans worry MPs and environmental groups, November 1, 2011
  11. ↑ Main Department for the Safety of Nuclear Facilities, Proof of Disposal: A Stage on a Long Road ( Memento of July 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) , 2005, PDF file.
  12. ↑ Deutschlandfunk - Dossier - Eternally radiant? (Part II) (PDF)
  13. ↑ Lasse Ringius: Radioactive waste disposal at sea: public ideas, transnational policy entrepreneurs, and environmental regimes. MIT Press, Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0-262-18202-5 , p. 25, @ google books
  14. ↑ a b Nuclear waste barrels leaking in the Atlantic , Swiss television November 2, 2011.
  15. ^ Reimar Paul: Documentation on nuclear waste: And the mountain of waste is constantly growing. taz.de, October 13, 2009, accessed November 7, 2010 .
  16. ↑ OSPAR position paper on the effects of deep sea subsidence of radioactive waste (RSC 10/4/3-E), which Report Mainz is exclusively available
  17. ↑ SWR.de, REPORT MAINZ: Leaking nuclear waste barrels worry MPs and environmental groups , November 1, 2011.
  18. ^ Documentary film "Atomic Waste: Seabed Final Storage" , first broadcast on April 23, 2013 on ARTE
  19. ↑ http://www.swr.de/report/presse/01/-/id=1197424/did=8815710/nid=1197424/klibym/index.html
  20. ↑ dradio.de: Disarmament in the North Sea , August 30, 2010.