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MIREMAR - Lectures and all Presentations

Minimizing Risks for the Environment in Marine Ammunition Removal in the Baltic and North Sea, 16th to 18th November 2010 in Neumünster, Germany

Lectures and Presentations of the International Conference on Minimizing Risks for the Environment in Marine Ammunition Removal in the Baltic and North Sea (MIREMAR) 16th to 18th November 2010 in Neumünster, Germany.

List of all Conference Participants

Media Links of Conference Themes

'Red Cod' / Chemical Warfare (Italy), by Luigi Alcaro

INTRODUCTION

Monika Krivickaite: Legal Aspects of Conventional and Chemical Warfare dumped in the Sea

The presentation focuses on the legal implications of sea-dumped conventional and chemical warfare and treaties involved. Mehr

Gunnar Moeller: The More we know, the Worse it gets – on the Situation of Conventional Ammunition in the Baltic Sea

The presentation has the purpose to give the audience information about what we know about the remaining mines and what we do and have done about the remaining mines today and tomorrow. Mehr

DETONATION OF CONVENTIONAL AMMUNITION

Lodewijk de Waard & René Dekeling: Overview of disposal of ammunition in the Dutch section of the North Sea

As a legacy of the First and Second World War, there are still large amounts of explosives present in the (Netherlands part) of the North Sea. An overview of present practice, scale of clearing operations and modus operandi will be given. Mehr

Sven Koschinski: Impact of Underwater Detonations on Marine Vertebrates

Blasting creates several risks to marine vertebrates. The immediate shock pulse can cause injury at considerable distance. Experimental measurements have been used to calculate safety distances for humans and cetaceans. Mehr

Jens Sternheim: Removal of Conventional Ammunition in WW II Ammunition Dump Site „Heidkate“ (Kiel Bight) – Progress and Mitigation

In the in direct translation so called “state between the oceans” dump sites of World War II ammunition became part of the public interest as State of Schleswig-Holstein authorities has started to blast up to 30 out of approximately 140 World War II mines and torpedo heads, found under water, just three sea miles off the coastline. Mehr

Tanja Grießmann et al.: Bubble Curtains as a Protective measure for Marine Mammals in Theory and Practice

An integral research goal consists in developing noise mitigation concepts, which are physically effective, without disregarding the aspect of cost-efficiency. Among the possible mitigation concepts the bubble curtains remains to be the best developed concept at present. Mehr

Edgar Schmidtke: Damping of Shock Waves from Sea Mine Blasts to protect Marine Mammals – Results from Bubble Curtain Trials in Heidkate 2008 - 2010

Air bubbles in water are known to damp underwater sound. This is a well known and well understood effect. Experiments will be presented that were carried out in the last three years. Mehr

Tiina Salonen: Nord Stream’s Environmental Mitigation and Monitoring During Munitions Clearance in the Gulf of Finland

More than 40,000 survey line kilometres have been sailed by Nord Stream research vessels to conduct surveys and underwater investigations. The goal was to find the best possible route, avoiding dangerous objects and minimizing impact on the physical, biological and socioeconomic environment. Special attention was paid to munitions, particularly within the Gulf of Finland. Mehr

DETECTION

Luigi Alcaro: Electro-Acoustical Survey of Mean Apulian Harbours (Italy) to Find Dumped Ammunitions: a Proposal of New Methodology

ISPRA is endorsed by Italian Ministry of Environment to carry out a survey of the main Apulian harbour to detect the Unexploded Ordnance lying on the seabed. The survey campaign is realised using a Multibeam system, a Side Scan Sonar an a Magnetometer/gradiometer system. Mehr

Thomas Wever: Sediment Information in North and Baltic Seas – Relevant for Ammunition Detection

After WWs I / II ammunition was dumped at sea. Insufficient logs of positions and dumping en route prohibit a targeted removal and/or neutralisation. Instead, ammunition is often detected accidently. In this presentation the data holdings of dbSEABED, a data system is presented. Mehr

Uwe Wichert: Problems in Locating Historic Dumping Sites

The quality of logbooks, war diary, reports or orders show us a different level, same as the older navigations systems or procedure. If we look on the wartime influence and the possibility of moving by minesweeping or fishing action, we must commit that we only have an overlook about the position of ammunition. Mehr

DISPERSION OF CRITICAL SUBSTANCES, SEDIMENT

Frederic Francken et al.: Dispersion of Critical Substances from Dumped Ammunition in Marine Sediments on Paardenmarktsite, Belgium

After World War I large amounts of munitions were left behind on Belgian territory. In 1919 the Belgian government decided to dump the ammunition on a shallow submerged sand flat. A three-dimensional model was constructed and applied to simulate the dispersion of the toxic chemicals leaking from a shell. Mehr

James Barton: Ecotoxicology in a Coral Ecosystem from Substances Leaching from Dumped Ammunition at Isla de Vieques, Puerto Rico, and Modern Advancements in Trace Level Detection Instrumentation

Research conducted by Underwater Ordnance Recovery at the US Navy’s bombing range on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, sought to determine whether there was an elevated radiological signature associated with an area shipwreck that in 1958 had been subjected to atom bomb blast testing in the South Pacific. Mehr

Patrick McLaren: Minimizing Risk by Understanding Your Environment: or “Why Use STA® (Sediment Trend Analysis)?” – A Case Study from the Lac Saint Pierre Experimental Firing Range, Quebec

UXO and contaminants are inextricably linked to their surrounding sediments. Processes affecting sediment transport may bury or expose UXO. The fate of associated contaminants is entirely dependent on natural behaviour of the sediments. STA® was applied to the sediments of Lac Saint Pierre, a former experimental firing range in the St. Lawrence River. Mehr

RECOVERY OF CONVENTIONAL AMMUNITION

Cristel Meert: Analysis of a Munition-like Item Retrieved from the North Sea

In 2010, unknown objects were found in a fish basket on the quay of the fishing harbour of Oostende. They were collected at the Belgian Marine Environmental Management Section in Ostend. Mehr

Franz Eder: Recovery of conventional Marine Ammunition using Salvage Robots and Water Abrasive Suspension Jet Cutting

The speech describes the developments since the last conference in October 2007 related to a master plan for the ecologically sound defusing of unexploded bombs and grenades found under water in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Specific emphasis is put on the detection and identification of bombs by means of sensors as well as the safe and sound salvage and defusing under water. Mehr

Fritz Pfeiffer: Photolytic Treatment of Explosives using Sunlight, a possible Solution for Heidkate Ammunition Dump?

Energetic Substances can be destroyed by photolysis, via microbial, plant and inorganic pathways. By selecting the appropriate chemical environment and careful analytical control of the degradation processes involved, complete destruction of dilute nitro aromatics can be achieved. Mehr

Erika Brandenburg: Parameters for Selecting a Munitions Recovery Technology

The Department of Defense (DoD) recognizes that under certain circumstances it may be necessary to locate and respond to underwater munitions. The DoD developed a list of parameters for evaluation of munitions response technologies. Mehr

CHEMICAL WARFARE

John Hart: An Overview of Historical, Political and Environmental Aspects of Chemical Warfare

The development, production and stockpiling of chemical warfare (CW) agents is reviewed. The principal CW agents and selected degradation products are also provided. Past and current methods of the disposal of CW agents (principally on land) and the related political and legal context are then discussed. Mehr

Jonathan Mills: Sea Dumped Chemical Weapons - The Scope and Purpose of the Chemical Weapons Convention (No Presentation available)

The Technical Secretariat (TS) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is vested with a general mandate to provide assistance and capacity-building support to States Parties to enable them to meet their obligations under the Chemical weapons Convention (CWC). Mehr

Thomas Stock: Destruction of Old Chemical Weapons – Technologies under application

The presentation reviews individual States Parties OCW destruction programs regarding efficiency, technology challenges and future requirements. The last decade has proven certain technology approaches to be applicable for destruction of OCW and others not to be applicable. Mehr

Luigi Alcaro: Environmental Effects of Chemical Ammunitions Dumped in the Southern Adriatic Sea (Italy)

The presentation shows the main results obtained within the REDCOD project (Research on Environmental Damage caused by Chemical Ordnance Dumped at sea) co-financed by the European Commission. Mehr

Nadezda Medvedeva - Microbial responses to chemical weapons dumped in the Baltic Sea

High number of microorganisms tolerant to MGHP in near-bottom waters indicates possible leaking of CW agents into the environment and contamination of water and sediments with mustard gas in dumping areas. The method for microbial indication of chemical weapon dump sites has been developed. Mehr

Vadim T. Paka: Clean-up of the Bornholm CW Dumpsite: towards the Optimum Decision

Based on results of the EC funded project MERCW (http://mercw.org), it became clear that a catastrophic scenario of further behaviour of the buried chemical munitions (CW) is unlikely. The question is what to do with the remaining CW. Mehr

Margo Edwards et al.: Locating and Evaluating Sea Disposed Munitions - Examples from the Hawaii Undersea Military Munitions Assessment (HUMMA) Project

The U.S. Army funded the HUMMA Project to assess the location of, and potential risk to human health posed by, sea disposed munitions located south of Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i. These conventional and chemical munitions have been exposed to undersea erosion since World War II. Mehr

POLITICAL DIMENSION

Terrance P. Long: An International Approach to Underwater Munitions

Munitions can be found in every ocean of the world and they are in many of our fresh water lakes, rivers and streams. Mr. Long discussed his own experiences in his native land of Canada and some of the ongoing international activities on underwater munitions. Mehr

Sebastian Unger: Conventional and chemical munitions in the North-East Atlantic – the approach of the OSPAR Commission

Dumped munitions in the sea are a historical legacy representing a risk to fishermen, other coastal users and the marine ecosystems. To reduce risk, the OSPAR Commission has adopted a framework for the development of national guidelines on how to deal with encounters with munitions. Mehr

Minna Pyhälä: Activities of the Helsinki Commission with regards to Chemical Munitions dumped in the Baltic Sea

In 1994, HELCOM released a report on the dumping sites as well as quantity and quality of the chemical munitions in the Baltic Sea. Since then, HELCOM continues to annually collect and report information submitted by the HELCOM countries on the numbers of incidents reported where chemical munitions have been caught by fishermen. Mehr

Kim Cornelius Detloff: Marine Ammunition in the Sight of NGOs

The presentation is outlining NGO’s sight on this invisible and often unknown threat, considering cumulative effects and interactions with other human pressures. It presents latest legal developments with respect to ocean protection. Mehr

Results of the workshops

MIREMAR-Workshops

Here we present the resulting papers of the workshops held on the MIREMAR-conference in Neumünster / Germany in the year 2010. Mehr

Conference Objectives, Programme and Other Details

Minimizing Risks for the Environment

NABU, GSM and GRD are proud to inform about the International Conference on Minimizing Risks for the Environment in Marine Ammunition Removal in the Baltic and North Sea (MIREMAR). The conference was held from 16th to 18th November 2010 in Neumünster, Germany. Mehr

Results of the MIREMAR-Conference

NABU, GSM and GRD held the International Conference on Minimizing Risks for the Environment in Marine Ammunition Removal in the Baltic and North Sea (MIREMAR) from 16th to 18th November 2010. These are the results in the sight of the organizers. Mehr