Race Against Time – Bombs Pollute the Baltic Sea
1.6 million tonnes of ammunition are rotting on the seabed of the Baltic and North Seas.
This rubbish from the Second World War is a ticking time bomb. As the casings rust, they release chemicals that slowly poison the seas.
Dirk Schoenen slowly descends into the darkness. The silence is thick. The only sound is his own compressed breathing through his diving helmet.
On the muddy seabed off Boltenhagen, Germany, lies a huge pile of scrap metal, according to the AP news agency, which visited the area. Dirk Schoenen carefully lifts the top pieces and places them in a basket: shotgun cartridges, grenade fragments, projectiles. It is precision work performed with triple layers of diving gloves. The skin must not come into contact with the crumbling ammunition.
From a surface platform, a team of engineers and sailors closely monitor every movement via a camera on Schoenen’s helmet. The work is not without risk. Mines and unexploded bombs become more sensitive over time and can, in the worst case, explode.
‘This isn’t routine work. The challenge is, of course, that you never know what you’re going to find,’ says 60-year-old volunteer Schoenen, who has been diving since 1986, to AP after being winched up after an hour’s work.
Dumped in exchange for payment
At the same time as tensions in the Baltic Sea region are rising again, with incidents between Russia and NATO allies occurring on an almost daily basis, Germany is still struggling to clean up after the Second World War. The government in Berlin has allocated €100 million to projects that will study how the seas can be cleared of war debris.
The work may seem fruitless. According to Germany’s Ministry of the Environment, around 1.6 million tonnes of old ammunition remain on the seabed. Most of it was deliberately sunk after the Second World War, as the Allies were concerned that the Germans would at some stage resume using the weapons. In 1946, trains from all over Germany were sent to the coast, and fishermen were paid to take the rubbish out to sea and dump it.
The project outside Boltenhagen began this summer. In this area alone, around six kilometres north of the seaside resort’s white beaches, a field containing around 900 tonnes of ammunition has been discovered.
Global problem
Two diving teams work here in twelve-hour shifts, day and night. It is a race against time – after 80 years, the shells are beginning to erode and poison the marine environment. Fragments of explosives such as TNT, which is considered carcinogenic, have been found alongside old ammunition on the seabed. According to the Ministry of the Environment in Berlin, these substances accumulate in marine life such as mussels and fish.
The levels are still below the threshold for drinking water, but in a study published in February, researchers found that in some cases the concentration is ‘approaching critical levels’.
The conclusions of the ongoing project are not only important for the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. The Black Sea, among others, faces the same challenges as a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
‘This is definitely a global problem,’ marine engineer Volker Hesse told AP.
There are around 1.6 million tonnes of unexploded ordnance from the First and Second World Wars in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
This includes bombs, mines, grenades, cartridges, missiles, depth charges and ammunition boxes. A small amount of chemical weapons – mustard gas and the nerve gases sarin and tabun – also lie on the seabed.
The quantity is large enough to fill a 1,000-kilometre-long freight train – a distance equivalent to the road between Berlin and Paris.
Most of the ammunition was sunk by the Allies after the Second World War as part of the disarmament of Germany after 1945. However, some mines and unexploded bombs originate from direct combat in the coastal area during the war.
Source: German Ministry of the Environment
