Problem Sitting at the Bottom of the Pacific?

[DBW]

On the Australian 60 Minutes last night there was a story about World War II ship wreaks throughout the Pacific. The issue is that there is several thousand ships on the bottom of ocean, there fuel tanks still full. The real problem though is about 150 oil tankers filled with millions of litres of various hydrocarbons!

According to the story recently one of the tankers started to leak so the US sent over a ship to drain all the fuel from it. The fuel is now being send to Singapore to be processed and probably sold. This was just in time before a vast number of reefs were effected. During the time it was leaking all fishing within the local lagoon was halted for 3 months, which would have certainly put a large amount of pressure on the locals.

I was looking for independent confirmation of that actually being such an issue and if anyone has any resources to find out more information.

Are people aware of this issue in the region?

 

[DBW]

Here ya go, this is the info they have posted so far on the 60 Minutes web site: Trouble in paradise

 

[PeterIMA]

Response to DBW about sunken ships containing oil.

Yes, I am aware that this problem exists. Last week I viewed a documentary about sunken ships near Pearl Harbor. The program stated one of the ships in deeper water was off limits to divers and was leaking oil.

In the Philippines, I was informed there is a sunken ship near the mouth of Manila Harbor in 200 feet of water with several hundred thousand gallons of oil. The tragedy is that the Philippine government has almost no oil spill response capability. So, it may only be a matter of time until a major oil spill occurs and coral reefs are decimated by the oil.

Peter Rubec

 

[Caterham]

This seems to be a pretty bad problem and we should start pumping those tankers as soon as possible IMO.

We are not, however, speaking German as our primary language in the United States of America. Many thanks to the brave men and women who were on those boats and lost their lives so that we can enjoy freedom.

 

[MaryHM]

Food for thought...there are natural oil seeps right off the Ventura County coast- I've seen them. Apparently it's equivalent to LOTS of oil be dumped. Maybe someone can find the exact figures.

 

[DBW]

The story transcript is now available at the above link.

Here are some of the stats from it.

PETER OVERTON: Environmentalist Sefanaia Nawadra is the man trying to make the world sit up and take notice. He and his team have begun the massive job of logging all the wrecks and assessing the risk of leaks.

SEFANAIA NAWADRA: So far we've identified close to 2500.

PETER OVERTON: Yet the warnings were ignored and last year, the worst-case scenario actually happened. The huge sunken oil tanker USS Mississinewa burst. Oil poured out, threatening the pristine Ulithi Atoll.

SEFANAIA NAWADRA: It was about two million US gallons, or about 10 million litres of oil there. If that had gotten out, it would have been something similar to what happened in Alaska with the Exxon Valdez.

PETER OVERTON: The Mississinewa went down in November 1944 when it was attacked by a Japanese suicide submarine. But under international law, the United States is still responsible for the tanker and its cargo of 10 million litres of oil

 

[Anonymous]

Does the current US Administration know about this? I can't imagine people like Cheney and Bush letting all that fuel go to waste.

Actually if there are that many wrecks I'm surprised someone hasn't started a company to remove the petrol. There are many salvage operations currently extant - would not be a huge stretch to combine their skills with a tanker and some eco friendly extraction technology to remove the menace and make a few bucks.

 

[Anonymous]

What about all the nuclear reactors sitting on the bottom of the ocean? Isn't the number around 60 now? Or the nuclear waste, hundreads of barrels, sitting just outside the Golden Gate?