Out of the depths comes war's lethal legacy
Vessels wrecked by the elements, scuttled, or sunk by submarines are emptying their dangerous cargoes into the world’s oceans 
By Andrew Johnson
Sunday, 16 May 2010 Environmentalists are becoming increasingly concerned that some of the thousands of wrecked ships around the globe, many of them along Britain’s coastline and dating back to the Second World War, are ticking time bombs that could be about to wreak one final act of havoc. Many of the vessels, which have lain almost forgotten at the bottom of the world’s oceans for decades, were destroyed by enemy action or scuttled after the war. Some were oil tankers or supply ships packed with aviation fuel and ammunition. More than half are believed to be British. And now, as they rust away, they are starting to leak. Earlier this year the Royal Navy’s auxiliary ship Darkdale sprang an oil leak, prompting a ban on fishing in the area of the South Atlantic where it lay. The vessel was torpedoed by a German submarine as it lay at anchor off Jamestown Harbour in the British territory of St Helena in 1941. It sank with the loss of almost all hands and its cargo of 3,000 tons of fuel oil, 850 tons of aviation gasoline and 500 tons of diesel and lubricating oil. … Such is the concern about war wrecks that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Ministry of Defence have just completed compiling a database of every ship wrecked in Britain’s coastal waters – they extend 200 miles out to sea – since 1870. Of the 9,905 wrecks catalogued, around a third are thought to be from the Second World War. Each is now to be individually risk assessed, Beccy Tye, the agency’s deputy recorder of wrecks, said. “There are still sections of the database to complete,” she added. “So far it comes up with 12 per cent of the wrecks coming from the Second World War, but I think that’s quite low. A lot of wrecks were unknown or unrecorded at the time. I would think the number is nearer to 30 per cent.” Kevin Colcomb, a scientist with the MCA who worked on the database, added that many countries are starting to follow the UK’s lead. “We are ahead of a lot of other countries on this,” he said. “The Australians are just starting to do it and the Americans.” He said that because many of the ships were “blown to smithereens” not every wreck presents a risk. The environmental consultancy group Sea Australia, which specialises in pollution, disagrees, however. “As these ships start to corrode it is only a matter of time before their cargoes start causing marine pollution,” said consultant Rean Matthews. …
