Jesse Barrett
Brookline, MA
2016, Senior, Creative Writing

Seafaring vessels of all sorts – from submarines to fishing boats, warships to freighters – litter the ocean floor, functionally innumerable and, often, functionally unrecoverable. Under examination, these relics provide us with fascinating glimpses into various historical tragedies, episodes of human carelessness, and hours of personal loss. Sometimes, by researching wrecks, we bear witness to simpler events, such as a swing in a fishery’s fortunes, or the fruits of a reef-builder’s folly. On occasion, however, shipwrecks that lay benignly beneath the waves for years begin to pose significant issues for wildlife and humans alike, as they deteriorate and discharge pollutants into local ecosystems.

Shipwrecks may leak various pollutants, but the pollutant most studied by researchers and policymakers is spilled oil. Public perception of oil spills dictates that dramatic, catastrophic events must occur for an incident to receive consideration as a “true” spill, a belief which is not completely unfounded. High-profile oil spills, such as Exxon Valdez and, more recently, BP Deepwater Horizon, began quickly and caused highly visible damage. Nonetheless, during November of 2001, Californians began to report spilled oil in coastal Pacific waters, despite no tankers having run aground, nor any drilling rigs having ruptured. It would be months before researchers were able to determine the source of the leaking oil. At fault was the wreck of Jacob Luckenbach, a freighter “loaded with military supplies for the Korean War effort,” that had sunk nearly 50 years earlier, in 1953. The Luckenbach carried “457,000 gallons of bunker fuel” – fuel that leaked intermittently for decades, causing thousands of shorebird deaths.

In short, oil-polluting wrecks pose an unignorable environmental threat. Still, one issue remains: other forms of shipwreck pollution can also be extremely harmful, yet are ignored with regularity. Sources of pollution like lead, mercury, and formerly popular antifouling agent tributyltin (commonly known as TBT) all have appalling effects on marine life, but a recent report conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for use by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) in assessing potential shipwreck remediation projects made little mention of any pollutant besides oil. Therefore, although the potential for sudden and gradual oil spills remains and should be addressed, the United States should reassess our existing information to further incorporate remediation strategies for greater varieties of shipwreck pollution.

The joint NOAA Coast Guard report in question is titled “Risk Assessment for Potentially Polluting Wrecks in U.S. Waters.” Sans references and appendices, it totals 124 pages and, as stated above, contains scarce mention of “nonpetroleum” pollutants. For context, the essential aim of NOAA and USCG in authoring this report was to “provide a current assessment of the threat of oil pollution from potentially polluting wrecks in U.S. waters,” and it successfully accomplishes that goal. However, the organization’s decision to limit its research to solely oil pollution and thereby forgo the broader topic of “marine pollution” is ill-advised when nonpetroleum hazardous pollutants pose such a pressing threat underwater.

In fairness, the report authors do take into consideration certain cases of hazardous munitions (typically lead-based) aboard surveyed ships, stating that “the individual risk assessments for the high- and medium-risk vessels do note what types of munitions were known to be on board at the time of loss.” Noting munitions information while profiling certain shipwrecks is positive, although insufficient. Firstly, simply listing sunken munitions fails to account for what actual impacts those munitions might cause. Secondly, by limiting the focus on nonpetroleum pollutants to munitions alone, the report fails to recognize pollution threats like heavy metals, particulate paint, physical debris, and more. Wrecks should be assessed holistically for their pollution potential and, according to Agneta Olofsson, writing for the publication Sustainability Journal, published by The Swedish Research Council ‘Formas,’ that goal is attainable. She states that, “…if hazardous loads also are to be considered, more substances must be included in the model, which is fully possible. For wrecks with known hazardous loads, one can begin by searching for any available toxicity data in literature and then continue by using this data in the risk model framework.”

It therefore becomes obvious that the United States’ environmental modeling assessments were severely lacking in scope. Short of re-running every simulation, it cannot be proven that including known nonpetroleum pollutants in computer models would change which shipwrecks were eventually assessed as high risk.” Nonetheless, that possibility appears distinct. And when considering the incredibly unfortunate impacts of common nonpetroleum marine pollutants, one wishes that possibility weren’t so. The aforementioned TBT is now outlawed under international treaty, but was formerly applied as an antifouling agent on the hulls of ships. The biocidal compound was intended to keep hulls clear of barnacles and other life forms which might potentially increase drag and, over time, become cause for costly maintenance. One ship, the HMS Scylla, was scuttled before the TBT on its hull could be removed. As put by Matt Bardo, a reporter at BBC Nature, “Though it has been more than 25 years since the paint was last applied, TBT-coated areas on HMS Scylla’s hull still remain almost entirely free from colonization.” Another scientist studying the colonization process atop the Scylla , Professor Yehuda Benayahu, notes that TBT “is considered one of the most toxic compounds ever introduced into the marine environment by human beings.” As such, it appears questionable that the joint investigation by NOAA and the United States Coast Guard focused myopically on oil pollution.

Mercury is another pervasive nonpetroleum pollutant found in shipwrecks. International shipping expert Clay Maitland states that sunken mercury exists partially because, “Other [ships], including some U-boats, were configured to carry cargoes of Mercury, as barter between Germany and Japan in the late years of the war.” As well, the various impacts of mercury on aquatic ecosystems are thoroughly documented. Tunnel vision, forgetfulness, involuntary convulsions, neurological damage, and death are all effects associated with methylmercury poisoning. In the 1950s, thousands of residents of Minamata, Japan succumbed to fatal methylmercury poisoning after it was “discharged in waste water from a chemical plant.” And mercury biomagnifies towards higher-level oceanic predators like tuna, meaning that many Inuit mothers, with their fish-heavy diet, have incredibly contaminated breast milk. So why isn’t mercury taken seriously when stored inside some ancient, battered, corroding shipwreck?

All things considered, the NOAA Coast Guard report, albeit limited in its attentions, is a valuable resource now available for professionals attempting to make informed choices about shipwreck remediation in U.S. waters. By comparison to neighboring Canada, whose policy regarding shipwreck remediation amounts to bare bones crisis management without any proactive efforts, the United States’ policy is solid. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t address high-risk shipwrecks for what they truly are: multivariate sources of pollution, veritable time bombs threatening the already deteriorating health of earth’s blue oceans. In all likelihood, these time bombs must detonate several more times before humans will begin to take notice.

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An Environmental Wreck