Ten years ago, Paul Adams was scuba diving among World War II shipwrecks in a popular tourist spot in the Federated States of Micronesia when he found black, oily bubbles rising from the wrecks. He later learned that the bubbles were oil leaks from the corroding fuel tanks of sunken vessels, Nikkei Asia reports.
Lying on the seabed in the Pacific Ocean are oil tankers, fighter aircraft and warships from Japan and Allied powers that went down as a result of ferocious battles 80 years ago.
Experts estimate there are more than 3,000 wrecked vessels scattered across the Pacific Ocean, with around 1,000 of those in waters in the Melanesian and Micronesian regions, near island nations such as the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The issue was highlighted at the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM10) held last week in Tokyo. The joint action plan announced Thursday stated that Japan and Pacific island nations will cooperate to deal with “oil leakage from shipwrecked Japanese vessels” as part of a broader effort to promote future-oriented relations.
Chuuk Lagoon in the Federated States of Micronesia, where Adams dived, is often referred to as the world’s biggest ship graveyard. A major Imperial Japanese Navy base during the war, it was targeted by American forces, which sank hundreds of Japanese warships, merchant ships and aircraft in three days in 1944.
Further south, Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands also saw bitter fighting between Japanese and U.S troops. Hundreds of Japanese and Allied ships and aircraft came to rest on the sea floor near Guadalcanal, more commonly known as Iron Bottom Sound.
Years of decay have caused some of the wrecks’ fuel tanks and hulls to rupture, spilling thousands of tonnes of oil and fuel into the sea. This poses a significant environmental threat and potentially devastates Pacific island communities’ livelihoods, which are heavily dependent on fishing and tourism.
Oil released from these hulks can kill coral reefs and suffocate mangroves, causing the depletion of fish breeding grounds and feedstocks.
Mark Brown, chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s main intergovernmental organization, told Nikkei Asia on the sidelines of PALM 10: “There is a responsibility on those countries whose vessels these are to provide support for cleaning them up before they cause any sort of ecological disaster.”
James Marape, prime minister of Papua New Guinea, agreed, saying the countries responsible for these “remnants of World War II” have a “moral obligation and duty to assist in the cleanup.”
Adams, who is now director of the Australia-based Major Projects Foundation, a marine research and conservation nonprofit that identifies and cleans up wrecks across the Pacific, describes this as “the greatest problem that nobody has heard about.” The foundation works with a team of subsea engineers, marine archaeologists, historians and bioremediation experts.
Based on historical records of the ships’ conditions and eyewitness accounts, Adams’ team estimated there are now around 60 critical wrecks in the Pacific in need of urgent attention.
What makes these wrecks especially dangerous is their proximity to local communities and the poor condition of their fuel tanks, which compromises their ability to hold oil.
More severe weather events caused by climate change exacerbate the risk of oil leaking from the wrecks.
“Every time a weather event goes through these places, there is a disturbance of the wrecks,” said Adams. Tidal surges speed up the corrosion of the sunken vessels, thinning hull plates and eventually breaking through the steel.
Adams said he is “expecting quite a large number of small to medium oil spills over the next years,” but due to the magnitude of the problem, Pacific island countries are not financially equipped to handle it. Cash-strapped nations such as the Solomon Islands lack the resources, manpower, know-how and equipment to conduct fieldwork and eliminate risks.
“A large oil spill is in the tens of millions of dollars to fix,” said Adams, while it would cost around one-tenth of that amount to implement preventive measures.
He is pleased that Japan is “starting to take an interest and starting to see the seriousness of the issue.”
The Japan Mine Action Service, a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization that specializes in demining and unexploded ordnance disposal, sent volunteer divers to the Chuuk Lagoon to clean up oil leaked from Japanese degraded ships. It also assisted in repairing pipes that were leaking oil from the sunken Japanese oil tanker Amatsu Maru in Palau waters.
“We appreciate that, and we want that to continue,” Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr. told Nikkei Asia. “I’m sure there’s a lot more wrecks out there that we don’t know about.”
