Immersed Ammunition
The concept of immersed ammunition indicates the situations where ammunition were lost or voluntarily thrown in marine water, soft or brackish, sometimes continental or underground.
This concept is directly or indirectly related to the situations of after-effects of wars or military activities. It mentions a double risk: of explosion; and Pollution and chemical contamination of the food chains; with short, average or long run according to the cases.
one hundred years
Près after the armistice of 1918, and sixty years after the defeat of the Nazi Germany, the immersed weapons (conventional or chemical) of the successive armies can still poison us (literally, economically and métaphoriquement).
Étant given the high costs of treatment of the problem and the absence of consensus to the solutions and the measure of the risk, its taking into account seems to be pushed back until the years 2000. The immersed ammunition pose serious problems, imperfectly dealt with: a sure destruction or a protected and respectful inertage of the environment is planned only for less than 1% of known immersed stocks, in Germany, Belgium and France, of Federation of Russia and perhaps soon also in China). This article proposes to give first a progress report on these questions
Origin and nature of the immersed ammunition
It can be a question of Munition S chemical or conventional.They were voluntarily immersed, for of débarasser with lower costs, or to prevent that it does not fall to the hands from the enemy, or because they were likely to explode or to flee because of their state of degradation. A part, which is not most important simply was accidentally lost at sea, following engagements, Naufrage S, Sabordage S or stranding S.
Certain marine and lake sites were regularly used like zones of firing practice on target, or for tests, including the particular case of the nuclear tests. Certain countries (maritime or not, like Switzerland) used lakes and wetlands as sites of exercises and discharge.
Many a not-exploded ammunition was thus lost during tests or of military exercises and at the time of “failures”.
In a lake, a sea or a closed wetland, even of the conventional ammunition having exploded to the impact can be at the relictuelles origin of pollution by lead, mercury or other metals. The old sites of shooting on lake are in the course of census in Switzerland (in 2005-2006), before a search campaign for toxic substances.
Immersed explosives
The mention “Explosives immersed” registered on certain sea charts relates to places of underwater discharge established since the end of the First World War, but many deposits seem not to be announced on these charts. Since, certain deposits moreover to some extent were dispersed by the currents, of the Tsunami S and the Chalut S of fishing.These particular “objects” seem juridically comparable to “Déchet S poisons or dangerous” likely to release in the many Environnement Polluant S, of which eutrophisants and certain very toxic products, in dispersed quantity (DTQD), generally and initially with Faible amount, but in a chronic way. The Risk S of explosion or brutal and important escape are still (incomplete sentence)
The consequences include the fields of the economy, of the Environnement, the Public health, the Civil security and the military businesses and the Prospective. The impacts dreaded by the experts in Mine clearance and ecotoxicology are especially of means and long terms and relates to all the food pyramid.
Out of fresh water
Few data are published, but old ammunition were massively found for example in the Lac of Gérardmer in France or in the Pit of Jardel (120 m vertically) from where the sources of the Loue run, in the Doubs. In Switzerland, a lake on two would have received some, of which big lakes such as the Lac of Thoune (where in the years 2000 40% of the Corégone S presented congenital anomalies, without one showing direct link and causal with the ammunition), the Lac of Brienz and that of Uri, as well as the basin of Gersau of the Lac of the Four-Cantons. In various other lakes (Walensee (or Lake Walenstadt), lake of Alpnach, lake Greifensee of the canton of Zurich, Lakes of the collar of Gothard, Lake Lauerzer), old rejections of various military materials were confirmed by DDPS in 2004.
Risk
This Risque is all the more badly evaluated in Europe that they are only into 2005 that the first official charts, not very precise were published for France, whereas this country one of is touched in the world by the immersions of ammunition. The first charts were published pursuant to the Convention of London and in accordance with engagements of the Member States of the commission OSPAR, but with five years of delay. The persons in charge of these immersions seem a long time to have thought that there would be degradation then dilution of the chemical poisons. However, at least in cool water, the poisons are still perfectly active after 80 years, some are not dégradables nor biodegradable (mercury, for example) and can be quickly reconcentrés by the organizations filterers and the Food chain. Recent studies and many indices let think that the Plomb, the mercury and the gases or liquid toxic as well as the Explosif S of the ammunition of 1914 (or later), and nitrates it (propelling) or phosphorus and metals which constitute the envelopes, casings or linings of the immersed ammunition could significantly affect the terrestrial and watery ecosystems, our food and our health. These poisons could also contribute to the great phenomena of Dystrophisation and dead zones ( marine dead zones ) identified by UNO.Certain sites of immersion are close to major tourist sites, Thalassothérapie or Conchyliculture (Cancale, Quiberon…) or important like spawning grounds or places of fishing of fish and shellfish. The toxicologists fear that the Bactérie S, the Poisson S, Crustacé S, moulds, Huître S, corals, sponges and other organizations filterers, can of the years or centuries after the conflicts, to reabsorb and bio-accumulate the mercury, the Plomb, arsenic, the Cadmium not dégradables. They can flee of corroded ammunition, or already start to disperse in water and the Sédiment S sailors.
It is at the end of the 20th century, in particular pushed by commission OSPAR, that some countries, like certain ONG or member of the die fish, started to worry about becoming stocks of Munition S immersed at sea or out of fresh water. As time passes, these ammunition approach (or exceeded locally already) a state of degradation likely to cause important escapes of poisons at sea, with depths where many fish and shells put on the market could be affected.
Certain deposits contain tens of thousands of tons of shell, but tonnages are quoted or evaluated only for less than 50% of the known sites. In the event of release brutal and important of poisons, even with large distance, large quantities of organizations marine, of which filterers (moulds, oysters, knives, hulls and other shells, etc), sea urchins or other seafood or fish carnivorous and marine mammals (whose Cetacea) could be seriously and massively affected, just as the bordering populations, even more remote if it were to be formed a toxic cloud. It is in particular a fear for the the Baltic, quasi-closed with the difference of the Atlantic or the Pacific.
In the same way, the consumers of products of the sea, the sea fishermen, certain yachtmen or very locally the bathers or plungers run a risk growing to be exposed with toxic substances, possibly gas. Certain sites of deposit are close to cattle-breeding areas of oysters, moulds or hydrant of thalassotherapy, or close to entries of ports or nuclear plants.
France
In France, thousands of tons of ammunition were recovered after the war 14-18. Some were dismantled, others were brought in the ports starting from the eleven departments of the “Red zone” or starting from arsenals southernmost, to be thrown at sea, in spite of a main risk of local and world pollution of the littoral marine ecosystems and . Some lakes are also concerned (Avrillé, Gérardmer…). It also seems that wells, old mines and galleries, old wetlands or pits (ex: pit of Jardel) are locally concerned.The trawls go up sometimes rare objects. Thus 3 shells 280 mm, 50 cm length and weighing approximately 100 kg were reassembled on Friday, December 30, 2007 by the Breton Chalutier Alcatraz of Lorient, to 11 km of the island of Groix which justified the displacement of 4 plunger-bomb disposal experts. The latter réimmergés these shells to destroy them under water with 2,5 kilometers in the East of the point of Gâvres where is a center of tests of the General delegation for the Armament (old group of Studies and Research in Ballistics, Armes and Ammunition (GERBAM). This type of ammunition, unusual was used only by small " Battleship S of poche" German ( Deutschland , Sheer and Admiral Graf Spee ) and cruisers of battle Scharnhorst and Gneisenau which remained with Brest from March 22nd, 1941 to February 11th, 1942, before returning to Germany via the Détroit of Pas-de-Calais ( operation Cerberus ).
The problem
Used, stored or lost, the ammunition (whose chemical shells) or their contents constitute a durable threat.-
Before the very recent appearance of ammunition qualified “green” or “not poisons” (i.e. without lead, Bismuth, Antimony, Arsenic, nor mercury), since the balls of mousquets, practically all the ammunition contained toxic components even very toxic (mercury, lead, arsenic, antimony for the projectiles), and of the chemicals or classified as metals “Polluant undesirable S” or “substances” in the air, water, the grounds, the organizations and the food starting from certain thresholds.
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Those which ordered, invented and industrially produced (or sold) of the billion toxic and polluting ammunition had not envisaged their end-of-life, and today the principle pollutant payer is of application impossible for this type of problem.
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the old conventional ammunition contain lead at least (generally enriched by arsenic and antimony to confer ductility and required hardness to him). The Starter S of balls, shell, cartridges a long time contained mercury (in the form of fulminate) very toxic when it is breathed in the form of vapor (80% of the mercury vapor breathed pass in blood), or transformed into Methyl-mercury (very bioaccumulable). The Fulminate of mercury being unstable, it was mixed with varnishes and, little by little, was replaced by other products of which the Azoture of lead Pb N6, the Diazodénitrophénol or the Hexanitromannital (explosive powerful with high breaking capacity), often used as loads of amplification between the detonator and the principal load of the strong explosive in the large shell and the bombs).
Responsibilities
It seems allowed that in the case of the after-effects of the world wars, once the negotiations on the damagees war closed and the peace agreements signed, the search for responsibility is not any more to make, and that is then in the States subsidiarily to manage the question of the after-effects about their territories (what does not exclude from the posterior agreements of co-operation). A reflection has been in hand on European and world scale for a few years but which did not lead to a total program of co-operation nor on a joint financing.An international convention urges its countries signatories to produce an inventory of fixtures for the year 2000 and to have destroyed their stocks (of chemical weapons) for 2007. Rare are the countries which are up to date their engagements.
Temporality of the risk
In the Baltic, of the fisherman are already frequently burned by yperite brought back in their nets, and one can wonder contaminated fish whether were not already marketed. But, except accident or terrorist act, the potential main issues are especially of means and long run. Because if the voluntary immersion at sea or in lake of Déchet S of origin military and not exploded ammunition massively started in the years 1919-1920, with one second wave after 1945, it is about years 2000/2005 that Obus, mine S, Torpille S, etc immersed at sea should start to flee. Those which were drowned out of fresh water or in sediments movable and low in oxygen should flee more tardily. Indeed, the steel cast iron which constitutes the envelope of the shells is thick on average from 5 to 6 millimetres It corrodes at a mean velocity from 0,1 to 0,5 mm/an. Moreover, the Picric acid , the explosive most present in the shells of 1914-1918 can accelerate the Corrosion, and give rise to of it Picrate S, likely to explode with the least shock. Moreover, the shells being often piled up out of thick piles, and sometimes with other types of ammunition (grenades, torpedes, mines, cartridges, etc) the weight of those of the top can crush those which would have precociously weakened with the lower part by causing brutal and important escapes of Toxique S and/or eutrophisants. The impacts of the pressure of water are badly known. Certain poisons of engagements were protected by a packing out of lead, or in a hermetically stopped bottle of glass (ex: arsines) which one is unaware of the behavior with great depth. The contamination of the food pyramid can then grow with time.
Quantities
Of the million tons of immersed… and often forgotten ammunition. . Among the countries which quickly admitted having immersed chemical weapons appear at least: Ireland, Great Britain, Scotland, the island of Man, Australia, Russia, the United States, Japan, Canada. Belgium has, in the years 1980, taken again knowledge with the famous deposit of Zeebruges (: 35000 tons) and France remained very discrete on its activities of immersion, but although the files are not very available, the historians had traces or indices of immersion of old stocks of ammunition in the Mediterranean and in the the Bay of Biscay like in the pit located between the Brittany and the the United Kingdom. The sea charts of SHOM comprise moreover some marks “explosives immersed” on the Atlantique littoral and of the English Channel/the North Sea.According to the French specialists in the mine clearance, questioned by a commission on the mine clearance, chaired by Mr. Jacques Larché, senator:
- a quarter of the billion shell drawn during the First World War and a tenth from the drawn shells during the second world war did not explode during these conflicts. Moreover one knows, to have found them, that large shell, as of the First World War were inserted at least to 15 m of depth in relatively hard grounds, without exploding. It is to be feared that in the Marais, Tourbière S, Vasière S, Mare S and ponds forest, Fleuve S and channels, of the shells were inserted much more deeply still. It is known that while falling on movable sediments until eight shell out of ten did not explode. Lastly, according to certain experts they are approximately half of the ammunition and material flamers used at the time of the two world wars which did not function with the impact.
- Since 1945 (time to which the mine clearance was organized, exploitable files in France only as from 1950, and being computerized as from 2000), more: 660000 tons bombs were released, like 13,5 mine and 24 million million shell or other explosive. France is the country more touched in Europe over the period 1914-1918, and with Germany over the period 1939-1945.
- In 56 years, 617 bomb disposal experts died in service in France where far from slowing down, more than 80 years after the end of the war of 1914-1918, the activity of the service of mine clearance was recently started again, bomb disposal experts profiting from a high level formation, but not taking in account the ecotoxicological aspects or of evaluation of the environmental impacts.
These problems, in France, justified a motion for a resolution (n° 331,2000-2001), tending to the creation of a board of inquiry relating to the presence on the national territory of ammunition dumps dating from the two world wars, to the conditions of storage of these ammunition and to their destruction (presented by Misters Jacques Machet, Philippe Arnaud, Jacques Baudot and Remi Herment, senators), and it exists with the senate a group of studies on civil safety and defense.
According to the available data and recently provided by the respective States to the European Union and the commission OSPAR or HELCOM, etc Since the years 1920, more than 1 million tons of ammunition (primarily conventional) would have been voluntarily cast only in the deep pit from 200 to 300 m (656-984 feet) between Scotland and Northern Ireland. A study of 1996 would not have shown any contamination of fish, but nothing makes it possible to guarantee the harmlessness of this long-term solution, nor that fauna will not concentrate the poisons thus stored.
At sea, of tens of great major sites of immersion of waste and ammunition and of the hundreds (thousands?) other smaller sites exist. Number of them seem to be forgotten or recently redécouverts by the town councilors and nationals. Several tens of thousands of tons (including chemical shells) are stored in each of largest of these sites. They can sometimes be located at a shallow depth (Islands of the Plank) and at some encablures of a littoral or an industrial port (bench of the Paardenmarkt to Zeebruges in Belgium), near fishing zones or of Frayère S, or marine currents irrigating of the essential zones of biological productivity…
Certain ships ran at the time of engagements with their toxic loading without to be located. There does not seem to be chart indexing these risks and dangers.
Miss information
The accurate information or available lack for evaluation specifies risk. It is understood that the dangerous character of the ammunition (chemical in particular) does not encourage the States with a diffusion of too precise information on immersed or hidden stocks. But information remained a long time so confidential sometimes that it seems to be forgotten. And if it is today easy to find on the Internet of the charts on traditional macro-waste (Ifremer), it is to date impossible for the civil persons in charge of the maritime security, the elected officials of the zones concerned or the community or for fishermen to find a chart of risk or danger; only the Belgian deposit, which seems indeed most directly dangerous is clearly delimited on the recent sea charts.Where they are made, which makes the studies? According to which protocols? With or without ecologists? What does one seek? (Contents in water and the air, or also in the sediments, the organizations filterers or bioaccumulateurs, in the flesh of fish or the bodies accumulating (liver, kidney, edges, mucus) or in the skin (ventral face of flat fish). Are the charts of risk and danger and the data ecoepidemiologic they public? Do an inventory charted and arranged hierarchically of the known dangers and a scale of risk exist? If so, for which territories and which covered periods, with which credibility for the not very democratic countries or the poor countries which can have inherited stocks old or bought displaced ammunition and at the risk? The files are they exploited? Quickly exploitable? In which languages? Géo-referred? Lost? Which and which application risk management of the precaution principle? Is it necessary to leave these ammunition on the spot or to recover them? With which suitable means? Who has to deal with what? (Research, monitoring, communication, cartography, éco-épidémio-medical diagnosis, recovery/elimination…). As many questions which remain outstanding.
In the totalitarian countries, but not only, this type of information circulates with difficulty and expose those which alert with heavy sorrows; for example, in the ex-USSR: imprisonment of the journalist Grigori Pasko which in 1993 had filmed a tanker of the Russian navy pouring radioactive waste and ammunition at sea of Japan, and in France.
Who does what?
In France
The order of the prefect n° 13/89 of the maritime police chief of the English Channel and the North Sea (known as “arr. prémar 13-89”) concerning the deposit of suspect machines found at sea explains what the fishermen must do who find of the ammunition in their nets.Pursuant to this decree, a “Guide with the use of the fishermen on the action to be taken in the event of discovered or of fishing out at sea of explosives, containers or barrels” was made in 1995, giving a report on a compensation for the discoverers of machines under certain conditions.
Nevertheless, it seems that the fishermen who are the largest “discoverers” of suspect machines, generally at sea reject the shells which they collect in their nets, sometimes on the wreck nearest, and generally in France without warning the CROSS-COUNTRY RACE.
For lack of carried with knowledge , the PREDICT ( Regional plans of industrial and special waste disposals ) omitted to take into account these aspects which are usually directly managed by the State, as the nuclear risk. The littoral areas and their elected officials do not seem either to have true “carried with knowledge” on nature, volume, the age or the possible presence of stocks of immersed ammunition in the vicinity or not of their Littoral. The inventories and “inventories of fixtures” preliminary to the application of the Directive-cadre on water did not integrate this question either, not more than the databases about the polluted or potentially polluted sites (BASIAS and BASOL), although it have a suitable heading.
Le decree n° 96-1081 of December 5th, 1996 gave the responsibility to the ministry for Defense to destroy the old chemical ammunition (200 to 300 types of different ammunition). This operation was entrusted within the ministry to the General delegation for the Armament, and more particularly to the service of the nuclear programs.
The capacity of destruction was initially fixed at 100 t/an for France, with one 30 years lifespan envisaged for the installation to build, cost estimated at the time to 880 million francs.
An installation was envisaged being able to function in 2x8 or in 3x8 h. That meant that installation initially planned for 100 T could treat up to 300 T, but at a higher cost.
At the end of 2000, one fixed the capacity of this installation at approximately 25 t/an out of cruising speed, which corresponds to the annual flow of discovery. This capacity will be carried at the beginning of the process with between 75 to 80 T, to allow the destruction of existing terrestrial stock during the first years of exploitation
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A project of 156 wind mills offshore oil rig in front of Criel and Cayeux-on-Sea in Picardy says “Project of the Two Coasts”, estimated at 1,4 billion euros, in front of being brought into service in 2010, by the Company of the Wind was blocked by the police port authority of Cherbourg because of the presence on the site of ammunition (old minefields). This project was to require 2000 people during the three years of construction, and 250 employment for the exploitation, with a tax of 8,5 million euros, versed for half at the local committees of fishings to compensate them. The group proposes to ensure the mine clearance of the site if the project is authorized Similar problems were posed in Great Britain, or the Baltic during the construction of the bridge connecting the Sweden to the Denmark, and relating to the project of gas pipeline which must cross the Baltic, but without blocking these projects.
In Belgium
In 1993 the principle of mechanical dismantling was retained, operational since October 1999, with 2 years of delay. The shells are transported to the hand, but sawing and cutting are made remotely, before technicians out of diving-suit empty the shell, recover the poison, clean the explosive and destroy it elsewhere. This “artisanal” process requires a personnel highly qualified, and makes it possible to destroy certain types of ammunition, but it is very limited in capacity (10 to 20 ammunition/day), capacity just sufficient to destroy flows discovered and not to reabsorb their terrestrial stocks of 250 T shell. Other installations would be being studied to increase this capacity.
In Germany
The country studies the possibility of increasing its capacity of destruction of ammunition. To the north of the country, a site is dedicated to this activity, with two installations of dismantling of chemical shells and soiled ground depollution. It is of an old production site and test, which underwent at least two major accidents: in 1919, the explosion of a train of ammunition which spread nearly a million shell in approximately. In addition the Americans and the English when they arrived on this site there destroyed installations without sufficient precautions, leaving serious after-effects of pollution. An entirely automated installation was brought into service in 1995 to treat the grounds polluted by arsenic derivatives and chemical ammunition, with difficulties which involved two years of delay and called in question certain technical principles.
Conclusion
In spite of some alarms coming from associations or personalities, following accidents or fortuitous discoveries, or information remained almost confidential, the ecotoxicological and medical aspect of the Séquelle of war, when he was not simply denied, remained curiously eluded by the historians of the period. Whereas the centenary of war 14-18, France, in spite of the repeated injunctions of the Commission OSPAR, in spite of alarms of NATO (in 1995-1996) and in spite of the pressing recommendations of the commission HELCOM then of the European commission, did not declare its sites of underwater immersion - with 5 years of delay and a vague way - that prepares in 2005, pushed by its international obligations. The official programs aim only the dismantling of the chemical weapons stored on the ground national or found by the bomb disposal experts.Although being the country more touched by the after-effects of war over the period 1914-1918, it mentioned this problem only after Germany, Belgium or England, the Baltic States and, much more discreetly. Perhaps the History will say if this is explained by the weight of the military secrecy or a will of lapse of memory specific to the mad years (in any case for the period of after 14-18), so much the horrors of this war were difficult at the same time to say, not to say and “to forget” in particular in connection with the poison gases, which traumatisé the opinion besides so much so that any the belligerents of Europe or of North America did not agree to use them during the second world war, preferring the atomic weapon to them, whereas they had accumulated considerable stocks, which to some extent will be thrown to them-also to the sea.
Whereas time passes, the buried and immersed ammunition corrode and risks it serious contaminations increases. And to the forgotten ammunition of the two world wars those are added which were manufactured and stored second half of the 20th century, that the majority of the countries were committed destroying before 2007, objective which does not seem to be able to be reached within sight of the means that countries are given.
Lastly, of the indirect impacts on the sea undoubtedly exist in addition. In the south of France, in Germany, in Belgium, chemical shells were demilitarized after war without one officially measuring with which residual impacts. Ammunition were immersed out of fresh water (7000 T of ammunition coming with 90% from the period 1914-1918, including 4 million hand grenades thrown in the lake of Sown in April, the pit of Jardel), and relictuelles pollution can exist in unexpected places. The sea being the natural receptacle of the basins slopes and certain underground layers, it receives also pollutants carried by the streaming or certain underground layers, of which some can come from not exploded ammunition degrading itself.
Towards a European mutualisation?
The Belgian minister for Defense, proposed the principle of the creation of a European agency of destruction of the chemical and conventional ammunition. This principle was decided, with a first preparatory meeting made in Brussels on May 4th, 2001. However a European factory of destruction of ammunition poses the problem of the financing (high costs) and the risks related to the transport of these very dangerous objects. In Germany, some Lands are opposed to the transport of these ammunition on their territory.The Parent directive Stratégie for the seamen circle which could have to be applied in 2008 specifies (in its appendix II) that the problem of the immersed ammunition is evaluated and dealt with, but the directive leaves a great freedom to the states on the choice of the means, and it envisages particular cases which could perhaps be to relate to this problem.
In France, the head office of armament (DGA) announced that, as in the countries of north, it was going to seek with better respecting the environment: “green ammunition” depollution of the grounds, with a budget of 150 million euros to spend before 2008 for the depollution of army grounds and as much for the search for materials “green”, less poisons and less noisy. However it seems that the sites concerned are only those which belong into clean to the army and only located on ground, and not under the sea.
See too
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