Transcripts For DW The Black Tears Of The Sea 20240712

Dangerous lurking off our coasts and hardly anyone suspects that theres a problem. Weapons of war that have been deteriorating for decades. These are ticking time bombs. This threat on the ocean floor is known only to a few experts. Its a race against time. But is this a race that we can win. Here at the polish port of good didnt you know a team of experts is getting their Research Vessel ready for an expedition. The crew includes hydrographers biologists and divers from the Marine Institute and the nearby port of dikes. Theyve been working together for years. Theyre headed for a site located in the base. About half an hour sailing time away. In 1909 experts made an alarming discovery there. The teams leader is benedict tuts a former polish navy officer. His repeated warnings about these underwater wrecks have made him unpopular with the authorities. Logically shit is just given some of them dont like what were doing the russians are. But its not our job to please them or to make things easier yes. This is like a mission for us because i always. Those. First up. There was a. Good thing that was. What Benedict Hans has been researching this part of the bay for years. That. The site is located just 2 kilometers off the coast of the. The pristine beaches along the bay of good times are also known as the polish riviera and theyre an important part of the countrys Tourism Industry more than 2000000. 00 europeans spend their Summer Holidays here every year. During. The trip should most us this is a great place to take a vacation just marvelous the beaches are beautiful and the people are friendly songs though some think its going to be like this forever but sadly thats not the case. Theres a problem here that only a few people know about. And its very dangerous story is that the guys an adult and who gets. The ship picks up speed to do a sonar scan of the sea bed. I would. Think of that that people gradually the sonar images reveal a relic from the past that poses a major threat to the tourist beaches. The wreck of the german hospital ship which took out. The vessel was nearly 170 meters long. In the autumn of 1903 the ship was anchored to continue renamed gordon half by the occupying germans. The vessel was to take on Wounded Soldiers from the eastern front. On the morning of october 9th 378 bombings of u. S. 8 Army Air Force took off from their bases in britain. Their mission was to destroy the strategically vital ports and dockyards along occupied polands baltic coast they reached the target area in about 4 hours. The good god took a number of direct hits. Fire broke out on the ship and flames lit up the entire harbor area. To cripple vessel it was later towed out into the bay and sunk so that it wouldnt block the port area. Today the stuttgart is just a footnote in history books the site of the wreck was soon forgotten. But in 1909 Benedict Potts came across the ships wreckage while he was mapping the floor of the bay for the good docs Marine Institute. Hes returned to the site often since then he has researchers continue to monitor the condition of the wreck. Today divers are braving the ice cold water to have a look. I wish to god is just 20 metres below the surface its overgrown with seaweed and shellfish. Theres not much left of the vessel but the wreckage is spread out over an area that would cover 2 football fields. In the 1950 s. Some parts of the ship were blown up in an operation to salvage scrap steel. At 1st glance the wreckage and the area around it dont seem to pose much of a threat. But i. Imagine. The divers will use special equipment to take samples from the seabed and. The 1st sample thats brought up shows why been to cuts is so concerned. Contains the globs of oil the researchers call them the black tears of the sea. Over the years hearts and his team have collected over 1000. 00 seabed samples from the site. But this is the most dangerous material that they found so far. That he had out in other though its a fixed foul smelling mass that contains a lot more oil than sand. Its. Probable that look at all that oil. Will out. Ive never seen anything like it here before. The day it will be. And it really stinks. The researchers will take the mud back to their laboratory for closer inspection. Is a good thing as were on the brink of an ecological catastrophe here. And i dont think we can do anything more to go down it as a child my job its name of the lawyers this site is completely contaminated how could. All forms of life have been eradicated from. Benedict cuts intends to take another 200. 00 seabed samples so that he can assess the extent of the pollution in the bay of the dikes. Is the stuttgart just a tragic one off case what about all the other sunken warships that date back to world war 2 do they pose a threat to the environment as well. Less than 20 kilometers away we find the vesta plot to peninsula on the bad. This is where the 1st shots of world war 2 in europe were fired on september 1st 1939. At 4 45 am the german battleship. Opened fire on polish positions. The war would drag on until 1905 on land and at sea the allies and the axis powers had huge navies that battle for supremacy. Allied Merchant Shipping was often targeted. As germanys navy and air force tried to cut supply lines. German u. Boats known as the gray wolves took a huge toll on allied shipping. In june 1942 they destroyed an average of 4 vessels a day. But what was the total number of ships that were sunk during the war and how many of them pose an environmental threat today like the stuttgart does. To find out more we travel to tampa on floridas gulf coast. Every year u. S. Coast guard officials scientists and salvage experts take part in the clean gulf conference to Exchange Ideas on how to combat oil spills at sea. Among those at this year session is american by. Ologist an environmental analyst dr Dagmar Schmidt it can in 2004 it can began a study on the number of potentially dangerous wrecks in the worlds oceans. But. I collected data on different wrecks and different places including a number of german databases which i translated from german into english and and some of those were based on you know what u. Boat had sunk which vessels. For 2 months that can search through archives and gather data from sources around the world. Also examine sonar images of shipwrecks. Can study included only vessels that have convulsion engines and a weight of more than 400. 00 gross register tons or 150. 00 tons for tankers. I found 8500. 00 and something wrecks worldwide and about 3 quarters of those for world war 2 related there was a as a surprise to. Be something ships can be found near ports at the sites of naval battles and along trade routes. The number of world war 2 era wrecks are said to be more than 6300. They include italian freighters in the red sea and japanese battleships in the pacific. The majority of all wrecks in the last 100 years of navigation history date back to the war. Many of the ships that went out were filled with fuel or crude oil. No one knows how much of that material still trapped in the racks but dr ecan came up with an estimate. Based on the number of large ships that had combustion engine. If i had no information i looked at the size of the vessel and the type of vessel. A tanker or a non tank vessel a ball carrier a victory ship or Something Like that and i assume well lets say at least 10 percent of the oil may still be on there maybe 90 percent maybe all we dont know so i have a range of values so i estimate to using that methodology estimated about 2. 00 to 25000000. 00 tons of oil could potentially be on the rocks and that was something of a concern because when they could potentially leak out and cause the same kind of damage as we see in other oil spills that occur you know. In march 989. 00 the tanker exxon valdez ran aground off the coast of alaska and spilled more than 37000. 00 tons of crude oil. But thats just a fraction of the amount of material thats lying in world war 2 era wrecks. Dr african says that those sunken ships could contain up to 50000000 tons of oil about 400 times the amount that was spilled by the exxon valdez. I presented my results on the numbers and the reaction was this is too big a problem we cant deal with it and here in the United States but also in other parts of the world were sort of buried its too complicated were not going to be able to deal with it its too expensive and so theres nothing we can do. Dr atkins study was published more than a decade ago since then experts have discussed the shipwreck while problema conferences but have taken little action. The delay has had serious consequences. Some of the oil has already started to leak because the tanks where it was stored are starting to disintegrate. Into. A number of world war 2 wrecks life the east coast of the United States. This Research Vessel is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or noa for short. The team on board the ship is constantly on the lookout for world war 2 ship wrecks today theyre conducting a search off the coast of north carolina. Before dr atkins study was published there was little interest in the sunken ships except among underwater archaeologists and. But the experts at no i soon realized that they needed to learn a lot more about world war 2 era rex and the potentially deadly contents. The researchers investigate every somethin ship that they find. They try to determine the extent of rust damage and whether any oil is leaking out. Persuasion laser equipment to measure every millimeter of the wreckage. One of noise main tasks is to protect americas ocean and Coastal Resources this is no one headquarters in maryland marine researcher lisa simons is in charge of monitoring wrecks located in u. S. Waters. Simons was alarmed by doctor at can study she hadnt realized that there were so many wrecks or that they contained so much fuel. Well there was a lot of concern and that was something that we were we were very aware of because theres been a lot of allegations about the waters of the United States the waters of. Germany europe japan being full of ticking time bombs with 20 points on it there are actually 30000 times wanted to find out more about the threat of things like dumpsites in 2010 and the u. S. Congress provided 1000000. 00 to help no one determine the risk posed by the sunken ships that represents 20000. 00 vessels its more than we can characterize and sanctuaries it has taken a lot of very painstaking Research Effort with the archives going back to the newspaper records sometimes you can find living crewmembers who remember. Being on a vessel or hearing about what happened to a vast. The experts used 21 separate criteria to rank shipwrecks in terms of risk putting the size of the vessel and the type and the amount of oil but so on board. Right now simons is studying the wreck of the merchant vessel coast traitor. The ship was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese Submarine off the coast of Washington State in june of 1902. The records indicate that there still could be 1000. 00 tons of fuel on board. And theres the edge of the hatch with the combing. Look at the decking very see how thats failed such information is often reliable but sometimes the researchers can find out more by using underwater robots. The team wants to determine where the torpedo actually struck the ship. So we are. Going to their investigation reveals that the vessel was heavily damaged and probably lost a lot of oil as it sank. So this wreck now seems less of a danger than was 1st feared but other wrecks could contain more oil than the records indicate. You know what simply doesnt have the resources to use robots to study all the sunken ships. The researchers so far have examined 573. 00 major shipwrecks and have written detailed reports on 87. 00 of them. 36 were believed to pose a serious threat if all their oil leaked out. And 5 world war 2 era wrecks were considered a major risk because serious environmental damage. The target audience that was the United States coast guard these are the wrecks in your area of concern that we did analysis of this is what our findings are these are the wrecks that we recommend that you put into active monitoring and its up to the u. S. Coast guard to determine whether or not they want to do an assessment and then determine whether or not they were. Remove the fuel. But the u. S. Coast guard has so far not carried out an investigation of any of the 5 wrecks listed by no one is extremely dangerous so they obviously havent gotten around to pumping up the oil. The coast guard seems to be taking a wait and see approach the situation is the same in some other countries that have to deal with this problem. But the experts that know up are taking an active approach. The agency operates its own satellite information center. Here analysts evaluate data in real time for the u. S. Weather service they also work out long term climate models. And they monitor the surface of the oceans around the clock keeping an eye out for any oil spills. These experts use radar images to spot potential problems. The researcher is focused on an area off the eastern tip of long island new york. The know what team also pays close attention to the sites in which possibly dangerous shipwrecks have been found. This one is not on the list of high risk sites but the analysts whats an unusual pattern could be an oil leak. In march the dark patch in measures that it turns out to be 9 kilometers long and 150 meters wide with a total area of about 1. 5 square kilometers he sends the data to lisa simons. Simons as for 1000000 with this rick its a british. Tanker that was sunk by a german u. Boat in january of 1902. No experts spot oil slicks near the site from time to time we need to talk about claim bring again it looks like the coast guard started pumping oil out of this wreck and april 21000. 00 over concerns that the leaking oil could reach coastal areas. But the authorities dont often have the resources to take action quickly to deal with potentially dangerous situations. Is a question for some people. Theyre more concerned about trying to deal with their their issues now that up a touch of threat. It is possible to remove while from sunken ships but its expensive in april 2015 a Russian Fishing trawler the oleg needin off caught fire and sank off the island but i cannot hear. The ship was carrying 1000 tons of fuel but salvage crews later managed to pump out most of it it was a difficult job not least because the trawler was sitting 2700 meters down on the ocean floor. The operation cost 30000000. 00 euros. At this point i believe we can take care of any wreck we can operate in any operational environment and any ocean depth at this point is just a matter of making the decision to go and look for the wreck and then to her to solve the problem. Jim elliott is a former coast guard officer hes also Vice President of a major Salvage Company and president of the American Salvage Association so he knows about these kinds of operations. Today if a ship sinks and its oil threatens the environment the material is pumped out otherwise the ships owner will be held liable for any environmental damage. In the case of the Russian Fishing trawler robots cut access holes in the fuel tanks. Then funnel shaped collection containers were installed to suck up the oil. Thats fine for modern vessels but what about world war 2 era ship wrecks that may be disintegrating. Jamil yet says that those operations were extraordinarily complex. Be honest with you its its very rare that we we do this its. Amazing that were still talking about these records and they havent been the issue 7 and so but theres an argument that if that will release is if youre an environmentally sensitive area it could be a lot more catastrophic and and definitely a lot more expensive in the long run to do that so for example youre dealing with the pollution recovery costs and once released from that wreck you can only recover say 10 to 25 percent with Current Technology on the surface so really its a losing game once youve once he was released. Many countries have adopted a wait and see approach to these situations but norway has pursued an aggressive strategy. Norways coastline is filled with fjords islands and base and covers a total of more than 25000 kilometers. In oil leak here could result in an environmental catastrophe. Norwegian coastal authorities are committed to a policy of prevention. And spit and morten storm is part of the Response Team that specializes in oil removal. Right now hes headed for a site read german warship sank. In this team find a small oil slick which is definitely a cause for concern. The slick indicates that oil is slowly leaking out of the wreck. Such incidents are common here given the extent of german Naval Operations in norway during the war. People in norway you know along the coastline i think theyre theyre used to seeing oil on the surface from the shipwrecks sea warships discovered on the entire coastline started steaming up the norwegian fjords. Germany launched a major combined arms attack on norway in april 1940. British naval and Ground Forces that had been deployed to the region offered stiff resistance especially around the port not trick. The german navy lost to cruisers and 10 destroyers a substantial portion of its fleet. The wreckage of ships that were sunk in those battles can still be seen along the coast. The destroyer tito was damaged by british warships and ran aground east of navigating. A total of about 900. 00 ships were sunk in norwegian waters during the war. The coastal authorities have classified 29. 00 of them as extremely dangerous because of the fuel thats still on board. Some of the wrecks including the georg are popular with scuba divers despite the fact that they contain the remains of sailors. But few of the divers realize the threat that is posed by the oil that continues to leak out of these wrecks. Now hanspeter mortons home is heading out to survey some shipwreck sites. This aircraft is outfitted with High Definition cameras that can spot oil slicks quickly. At least once a week one time in this team check all the wrecks that are classified as dangerous. Today theyll fly over the oslo fjord. One 5th of norways population lives near this narrow inlet an oil spill here would reach land at no time. This is the border fortress in april 1040 the fortress managed to delay a german naval force headed for oslo. And its gun sank the heavy cruiser lucia. Which went down with more than 1400. 00 tons of fuel on board. Or the blue shirt still lies on the floor of the fjord 70 meters down. It has been officially designated as a war memorial to protect it from looters. But the wreck no longer poses a serious threat to the environment or since the blueshirts say its been leaking small amounts of fuel. In 1900 for the Norwegian Coastal Authority had most of what was left pumped out. There is still some left but 4050 estimated. Cubics of the soul because they didnt empty the tanks. Close to the i mean Mission Storage rooms due to the risk and and in addition when you empty a wreck of remaining all you will always have small pockets where the salt still in the wrecked. Morten storm confirms that some oil is still leaking out of the wreck. In fact he may have to organize another pumping operation. Because the boucher and other warships are disintegrating. You also react because something is starting to leak more but we have also emptied rex because of your risk they might post in maybe 10 to 20 years and the reason why we do. These kind of machinists now use mainly due to the corrosion in 10 to 20 years it might be too late to do and if you see call operations on the right. This disintegration of sunken world war 2 era ships is one big reason why norway is taking active measures to protect its coastal areas its one of the few countries that have done so. Steel structures that are underwater lose between half a millimeter and 2 millimeters of thickness per decade. Depending on salt content water depth and temperature. Australian researchers have discovered that if these structures lose between 3 and 10000000000 meters of thickness they can become unstable and break apart. Many of these wrecks have gotten to this point already or will do so soon. Thats why the norwegian authorities have ordered 7 more wrecks to be pumped out. Of steel walls of the fuel tanks on the ships are still stable enough to allow for the installation of drainage routes. But when crew started emptying the takes of the german destroyer if visa they discovered a new. Danger a highly toxic kind of fuel. Especially the german bank or has some extremely strong smell so we were interesting to see how toxic is the oil into bankrolled from the 2nd world war. When the toy sent a sample of this oil to the center for Laboratory Input on high for analysis. Syntax is one of europes largest independent research organizations. Oil slicks in norway can be difficult to deal with the oil can congeal in the icy waters and that can complicate the cleanup effort. The size of the oil droplets determines how broad and fix an oil slick is. Another important factor is the type of oil and there are many of. The center for researchers have tested and analyzed more than 3000 different kinds of oil. And that includes the fuel that was pumped out of the german destroyer every season. One test was designed to determine how oil mixes with water and weight swells. The sample was rotated in this device for 24 hours. On consoles and. Going that was what meanwhile the scientists analyzed the specific chemical composition of the ships oil. And they were surprised to find. Some of the values were unusually high and then within that if was so were told 1st it was some kind of point to me nation that you know 11. They dont you set up and it was the same and i think in the same in this thread that this is a really strange i have never seen a thing as toxic for. Later tests showed that the oil had mixed with seawater to create a fix lunch. That material will be difficult to pump out of a sunken ship in an emergency. By comparison tests on world war 2 era british soil indicated that it did not mix with seawater at all. Then the researchers carried out a series of experiments to find out how this oil would affect sea life specifically the tiny christe ations that are a key part of the food chain in the ocean ecosystem. The scientists prepared a mixture of 40 part sea water and one part heavy oil from the german destroyer the crustaceans were placed in the solution and studied over a period of 4 days. The final result. All of them either died or became paralyzed. The researchers had no idea what made this particular type of oil so toxic. The only well it is that. The then they came across a u. S. Intelligence report from 1905 that outlined germanys reliance on Synthetic Fuels during the war. Much of that fuel was produced from coal that have been treated with hydrogen at high temperatures. In technical. This synthetic fuel contains more toxic substances than conventional fuel did. That has a high potential for actually causing adverse effects on the bio so there is something that should not be left for wiping it for corrode into pieces and then start to do action about it but its something that should be preferably removed in a controlled manner. Bin addict studied the norwegian tests on german fuel and found that their results were similar to analysis that he had done on oil recovered from the hospital ship got. Hearts knows that this highly toxic oil is contaminating the seabed but he has no idea how much of it has leaked into good space since the vessel was sunk in 1903. Hes come to the Archives Section of the National Maritime museum to do some research on the vessel. These documents show that the strict got was ready to set sail when it was something that means it was almost certainly full of highly toxic synthetic fuel. Tah it an ole the fuel spilled out and it was very heavy so it sank right to the seabed or my Research Indicates that the ship was carrying between 801000 tons of fuel thats an awful lot theres bottles of those. And tests indicate that the pollution is spreading along the seabed. When hearts found the wreck in 1990 an estimated 25000 square meters were contaminated if it will. Appear to. 10 years later that had increased to 32000 square meters. And some of the oil is moving quickly because its flowing down and underwater slope. Toward it now covers an area equivalent to more than 50 football fields of. Huts is trying to come up with a solution for what he considers an environmental catastrophe for the last. 4 years or. If we were to haul up the rock and all the polluted soil by you it would cost hundreds of millions of your hoods and you dont know if it would go up at the moment problem then wed have to figure out where to store and get the most as it looked. Korea may go past him we could cover the site with a protective layer of sand. And that could cost between 15. 20 Additional National media on the. Parts believes that the expense would be worth it because he says that the fate of the base ecosystem is at stake. Here but the government never seems to have money for these kinds of projects. Because when the officials just try to ignore the problem. And push it away. And yet. But i say no no were short of money as it is and now you ask for all this up and. And the stuttgart is not the only pollution problem here there are more than 30 world war 2 era wrecks in the bay of good times. Particularly worried about the german fuel tanker found that was sunk by the soviet air force in april 1905. It could still be holding up to 3 metric tons of fuel. Much more than the amount that has leaked out the chicago. But its likely that neither poland nor germany will take responsibility for pumping up the oil. There are more than 6300. 00 wrecks like this one around the world and they pose a serious threat to the environment. And its a problem thats not visible until it really happens so its lets if the vessel breaks up if there is a scale then well deal with it. The ships are doing nothing but tearing youre sitting in salt water just isnt the early fortys. Its going to become a chronic process and you can either deal with it in place where you can deal with cleaning up oil on the beaches or to use. The time is to get that does not go to the question is not whether but when this will happen and its up to us to decide how to respond to the dog. Whats going on here. A house of your very own from a printer. Computer games that are healing. My dog needs electricity. Shift explains delivers facts and shows what the future holds oh yeah living in the gentle world shift. 15 minutes on d w. On the 77 percent we talk about between issues that might top too. Many Young Africans view providing for their families as an owner. But what happens if a barely able to feed them sounds. One is young nigerian frequent. The 77 percent. You know 30 minutes on d w. Literature invites us to see people in particular. I like to see myself as the kids find strength growing up. My objective is to share work afraid. To go to the books on youtube. News of life from a close vote expected as poland chooses a president topless incumbent he is favored to win the runoff but he faces a tough challenge from wausau mayor rafael confiscate. The u. N. Security Council Agrees on a new lifeline for syria in a vote to extend mandatory need to live to the rebel held north but russia and china in says it entered the country through a single border crossing