Alarm! Time bomb! Where, what could we do???
Although the danger is grave, unfortunately we don’t know yet what to do and how to prevent it from happening, this what our guest Mr. Dieter W. Sauer, Senior Professional Engineer, who works on the subject closely with Dr. Hac of Maritime Institute of Gdańsk and The Mare Forum Warszawa told us during our meeting on last Wednesday.
The sunken during II World War German ship T/S Franken, loaded with fuel, cannons and bombs, lay on the bottom of Baltic Sea in Gdańsk Bay, close to The Tricity is due to break in 3-5 years!!! About 5 millions liters of heavy fuel would spill on our beautiful beaches causing a major ecological catastrophe.
WIKIPEDIA:
Threat to the natural environment
In June 2018, the Maritime Institute in Gdańsk and MARE Foundation prepared a report, which shows that in the next few years a corroded wreck may fall apart and cause leakage of 1.5 to 5 million liters of fuel (mainly mazout) accumulated in survived 5 (out of 13) the tanks of the unit, and consequently ecological disaster on the Polish coast. The surviving documents show that the ship was tanked by another tanker a few days before the sinking, just before the sinking did not transfer the fuel to other vessels, and there were 3 thousand on board. 136 cubic meters of fuel. Its leakage may cause contamination of beaches lying at a distance of 10 to 25 km from the place where the ship is located, that is, the entire area of the Gulf of Gdansk from Piasków to Hel. The conducted soil research in the immediate vicinity of the tanker showed that there has already been a significant amount of environmental pollution, and standards for some toxic and carcinogenic substances have been exceeded several hundred times
Past President Sweata Shah-Ostrowska
It’s good that our other guest – Past President Sweata Shah-Ostrowska put us in a better mood, but we are not going to forget of the unfortunate Franken wreck.