W. Made for mines. Dangerous lurking off our coasts and hardly anyone suspects that theres a problem. Weapons of war that have been deteriorating for decades. These are ticking time bombs. This threat on the ocean floor is known only to a few experts. Its a race against time. But is this a race that we can win. Here at the polish port of good didnt you know a team of experts is getting the Research Vessel ready for an expedition. The crew includes hydrographers biologists and divers from the Marine Institute in the nearby port of good times. Theyve been working together for years. Theyre headed for a site located in the bay good times about half an hour sailing time away. In 1990 experts made an alarming discovery there. The teams leader is benedict tuts a former polish navy officer. His repeated warnings about these underwater wrecks have made him unpopular with the authorities. Much its just given some of them dont like what were doing here actions of others but its not our job to please them or to make things easy yes. This is like a mission for us nice. First stop. There. Because theyre up with. What benedicts has been researching this part of. Bay for years. If that is. The site is located just 2 kilometers off the coast of. The prestigious beaches along the bay of good times are also known as the polish riviera and theyre an important part of the countrys Tourism Industry more than 2000000. 00 europeans spend their Summer Holidays here every year. During. Much actually most us this is a great place to take a vacation just marvelous on the beaches are beautiful and the people are friendly songs though some think its going to be like this forever but sadly thats not the case. Theres a problem here that only a few people know about. And its very dangerous though is that you guys know that you do get. The ship picks up speed to do a sonar scan of the seabed. Others are. Coming up that looking gradually the sonar images reveal a relic from the past that poses a major threat to the tourist beaches. The wreck of the german hospital ship which took out. The vessel was nearly 170 meters long. In the autumn of 1903 the ship was anchored to continue renamed golden half by the occupying germans. The vessel was to take on Wounded Soldiers from the eastern front. On the morning of october 9th 378 bombings of u. S. 8 Army Air Force took off from their bases in britain. Their mission was to destroy the strategically vital ports and dockyards along occupied polands baltic coast they reached the target area in about 4 hours. To stuttgart took a number of direct hits. Fire broke out on the ship in flames lit up the entire harbor area. To cripple vessels was later told out into the bay and sunk so that it wouldnt block the port area. Today the stuttgart is just a footnote in history books the site of the wreck was soon forgotten. But in 1909 benedict hots came across the ships wreckage while he was mapping the floor of the bay for the good times Marine Institute. Hes returned to the site often since that he was researchers continue to monitor the condition of the wreck. Today divers are braving the ice cold water to have a look. Stuttgart lies just 20 meters below the surface its overgrown with seaweed and shellfish. Theres not much left of the vessel but the wreckage is spread out over an area that would cover 2 football fields. In the 1950 s. Parts of the ship were blown up in an operation to salvage scrap steel. At 1st glance the wreckage and the area around it dont seem to pose much of a threat. But i. Imagine. The divers will use special equipment to take samples from the seated and. The 1st sample thats brought up shows why bin it because its so concerned. Contains the globs of oil the researchers call them the black tears of the scene. Over the years hearts and his team collected over 1000. 00 seabed samples from the site. But this is the most dangerous material that they found so far. About yet another though its a fix foul smelling mass that contains a lot more oil than sand. And. Its. Probable that look at all that oil. Through out. Ive never seen anything like it here before. The day yet we were lucky. And it really stinks. The researchers will take the mud back to their laboratory for closer inspection. Its a good thing as were on the brink of an ecological catastrophe they are. Due and i dont think we can do anything more to it than it is a child of lego bricks no muslim values this site is completely contaminated how could we. All forms of life have been eradicated. And minute to cuts intends to take another 200. 00 seabed samples so that he can assess the extent of the pollution in the bay at the dikes. Is the stuttgart just a tragic one off case what about all the other sunken warships that date back to world war 2 do they pose a threat to the environment as well. Less than 20 kilometers away we find the vesta plot to peninsula on the bad dikes. This is where the 1st shots of world war 2 in europe were fired on september 1st 1939. At 4 45 am the german battleship. Opened fire on polish positions. The war would drag on until 1905 on land and at sea the allies in the axis powers had huge navies that battle for supremacy. Allied Merchant Shipping was often targeted. As germanys navy and air force tried to cut supply lines. German u. Boats known as the gray wolves took a huge toll on allied shipping. In june 1902 they destroyed an average of 4 vessels a day. But what was the total number of ships that were sunk during the war and how many of them pose an environmental threat today like the stuttgart does. To find out more we travel to tampa on floridas gulf coast. Every year u. S. Coast guard officials scientists can salvage experts take part in the clean gulf conference to Exchange Ideas on how to combat oil spills at sea. Among those at this your session. As american biologist and environmental analyst dr Dagmar Schmidt it can in 2004 it can begin a study on the number of potentially dangerous wrecks in the worlds oceans. But. You know i collected data on different wrecks and different places including a number of german databases which i translated from german into english and and some of those were based on you know what u. Boat had sunk which vessels. For 2 months it can search through archives and gather data from sources around the world. Also examine sonar images of ship wrecks. That can study included on the vessels that have combustion engines and a weight of more than 400. 00 gross register tons or 150. 00 tons for tankers. I found 8500. 00 and something racks worldwide and about 3 quarters of those were world war 2 related there was a as a surprise. The sunken ships can be found near ports at the sites of naval battles and along trade routes the number of world war 2 era wrexham said to be more than 6300. They include italian freighters in the red sea and japanese battleships in the pacific. The majority of all wrecks in the last 100 years of navigation history date back to the war. Many of the ships that went out were filled with fuel or crude oil. No one knows how much of that material still trapped in the racks but dr econd came up with an estimate. Based on the number of large ships that had combustion engine. If i had no information i looked at the size of the vessel and the type. Vessel. Tank or non tank vessel a ball carrier a victory ship or Something Like that and i assume well lets say at least 10 percent of the oil may still be on there maybe 90 percent maybe all we dont know so i have a range of values so i estimate it using that methodology estimated about 2. 5 to 25000000 tons of oil could potentially be on these rocks and that was something of concern because. They could potentially leak out and cause the same kind of damage as we see in other oil spills that occur now. In march 1909 the tanker exxon valdez ran aground off the coast of alaska and spilled more than 37000 tons of crude oil. But thats just a fraction of the amount of material thats lying in world war 2 era wrecks. Dr if you can says that those sunken ships could contain up to 50000000 tons of oil about 400 times the amount that was spilled by the exxon valdez. I presented my results on the numbers and the reaction was this is too big a problem we cant deal with it most here in the United States but also in other parts of the world were sort of buried its too complicated were not going to be able to deal with it its too expensive and so theres nothing we can do. It can study was published more than a decade ago since then experts have discussed the shipwreck while problema conferences but have taken little action. To delay has had serious consequences. Some of the oil has already started to leak because the tanks where it was stored are starting to disintegrate. A number of world war 2 wrecks lie of the east coast. Of the United States. This Research Vessel is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or no one for short. The team on board the ship is constantly on the lookout for world war 2 ship wrecks today theyre conducting a search off the coast of north carolina. Before dr ecan study was published there was little interest to me sunken ships except among underwater archaeologists. But the experts at no i soon realized that they needed to learn a lot more about world war 2 era rex and the potentially deadly contents. The researchers investigate every something ship that they find. They try to determine the extent of rust damage and whether any oil is leaking out. They use persuasion laser equipment to measure every millimeter of the record. One of north main tasks is to protect americas ocean and Coastal Resources this is no one headquarters in maryland Marine Research or lisa simons is in charge of monitoring rex located in u. S. Waters. Simons was alarmed by dr at can study she hadnt realized that there were so many wrecks or that they contained so much fuel. Well there was a lot of concern that was something that we were we were very aware of because theres been a lot of allegations about the waters of the United States the waters. Germany europe japan being full of ticking time bombs with 20000 points on it theyre actually 30000 pounds wanted to find out more about that threat things like dumpsites in 2010 and the u. S. Congress provided 1000000. 00 to help know what determines the risk posed by these sunken ships they represent 20000. 00. More than we can characterize in sanctuaries it has taken a lot of very painstaking Research Effort with the archives going back to the newspaper records sometimes you can find living crewmembers who remember. Being on a vessel or hearing about what happened to about. The experts use 21. 00 separate criteria to rank shipwrecks in terms of risk putting the size of the vessel and the type and the amount of oil thats still on board. Right now simons a studying the wreck of the merchant vessel coast trigger. The ship was torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese Submarine off the coast of Washington State in june of 1902. The records indicate that there still could be 1000. 00 tons of fuel on board. And theres the edge of the hatch with the combing. Look at the decking there you see how thats failed such information is often reliable but sometimes the researchers can find out more by using underwater robots. The team wants to determine where the torpedo actually struck the ship. So we are. Going to hear their investigation reveals that the vessel was heavily damaged and probably lost a lot of oil as it sank. So this wreck now seems less of a danger than was 1st feared but other wrecks could contain more oil than the records indicate you know no ones simply doesnt have the resources to use robots to study all the sunken ships. The researchers so far have examined 573. 00 major ship. Bricks and have written detailed reports on 87. 00 of them. 36 were believed to pose a serious threat if all their oil leaked out. And 5 world war 2 era wrecks were considered a major risk because serious environmental damage. The target audience that was the United States coast guard these are the wrecks in your area of concern that we did an analysis of this is what our findings are these are the wrecks that we recommend that she put into active monitoring and its up to the u. S. Coast guard to determine whether or not they want to do an in Water Assessment and then determine whether or not they want to remove the fuel. But the u. S. Coast guard has so far not carried out an investigation of any of the 5 wrecks listed by no one is extremely dangerous so they obviously havent gotten around to pumping out the oil. The coast guard seems to be taking a wait and see approach the situation is the same in some other countries that have to deal with this problem. But the experts at no upper taking an active approach. The agency operates its own satellite and information center. Here analysts evaluate data in real time for the u. S. Weather service they also work out long term climate models. And they monitor the surface of the oceans around the clock keeping an eye out for any oil spills. These experts use radar images to spot potential problems. The researcher is focused on an area off the eastern tip of long island new york. The no one team also pays close attention to the sites in which possibly dangerous shipwrecks have been found. This one is not on the list of high risk sites but the analysts whats an unusual pattern could be an oil leak. In march the dark patch and measures that it turns out to be 9 kilometers long and 150 meters wide with a total area of about 1. 5 square kilometers he sends the data to lisa simons. Simon does for a 1000000 with this wreck its a british tanker that was sunk by a german u. Boat in january of 1902. No experts spot oil slicks near the site from time to time we need to talk about claims again it looks like the coast guard started pumping oil out of this wreck and april 21000 over concerns that the leaking oil could reach coastal areas. But the authorities dont often have the resources to take action quickly to deal with potentially dangerous situations. Is a question for some people. Theyre more concerned about trying to deal with their their issues now that up a touch of threat. It is possible to remove while from something ships but its expensive in april 2015 a Russian Fishing trawler the oleg needin off caught fire and sank off the island of good on canady. The ship was carrying 1000 tons of fuel but salvage crews later managed to pump out most of it it was a difficult job not least because the trawler was sitting 2700 meters down on the ocean floor. The operation cost 30000000. 00 euros. At this point i believe we can take care of any wreck we can operate in any operational environment and any ocean depth at this point is just a matter of making the decision to go and look for the wreck and then to solve the problem. Jim elliott is a former coast guard officer hes also Vice President of a major Salvage Company and president of the American Salvage Association so he knows about these kinds of operations. Today if a ship sinks and its oil threatens the environment the material is pumped out otherwise the ships owner will be held liable for any environmental damage. In the case of the Russian Fishing trawler robots cut access holes in the fuel tanks. That funnel shaped collection containers were installed to suck up the oil. Thats fine for modern vessels but what about world war 2 era ship wrecks that may be disintegrating. Jamila it says that those operations are extraordinarily complex. To be honest with you its its very rare that we we do this its. Amazing that were still talking about these wrecks and they havent been the issue 7 so. Theres an argument that if that will release is if youre an environmentally sensitive area it could be a lot more catastrophic and out and definitely a lot 25 percent with Current Technology on the surface so really its a losing game once youve once he was released. Many countries have adopted a wait and see approach to these situations but norway has pursued an aggressive strategy. Norways coastline is filled with fjords islands and base and covers a total of more than 25000 kilometers. And oily keir could result in an environmental catastrophe. Norwegian coastal authorities are committed to a policy of prevention. And spit at mortons while it is part of the Response Team that specializes in oil removal. Right now hes headed for a site read german warship sank. The u. S. Team find a small oil slick which is definitely a cause for concern. The slick indicates that oil is slowly leaking out of the wreck. Such incidents are common here given the extent of german Naval Operations in norway during the war. People in norway along the coastline i think theyre theyre used to seeing oil on the surface from the ship wrecks the warships discovered along the entire coastline started steaming up the norwegian fjords. In. Germany launched a major combined arms attack on norway in april 1900. British naval and Ground Forces that have been deployed to the region offered stiff resistance especially around the port and now pick up the german navy the last 2 cruisers and 10 destroyers 2 2 a substantial portion of its fleet. And. The wreckage of ships that were sunk in those battles can still be seen along the coast. The destroyer tito was damaged by british warships and ran aground east of not a. Total of about 900 ships were sunk in norwegian waters during the war. The coastal authorities have classified 29. 00 of them as extremely dangerous because of the fuel thats still on board. Some of the wrecks including the georg teena are popular with scuba divers despite the fact that they contain the remains of sailors. But few of the divers realize the threat that is posed by the oil that continues to leak out of these wrecks. Now hanspeter morton toy is heading out to survey some shipwreck sites. This aircraft is outfitted with