Truk Lagoon Shipwrecks – Environmental Time Bombs

Truk Lagoon, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, is one of my favorite places to dive. Truk (or Chu’UK as it is now called) was once the safe anchorage for the Imperial Japanese Fleet during its march across the Pacific in World War II. Now, more than 50 Japanese ships lie at the bottom of the lagoon, sunk during Operation Hailstone in 1944. These wrecks attract divers from all over the world, often more than once.

Now some publicity is beginning to build around a massive problem facing Truk Lagoon: the release of potentially tens of thousands of tons of oil from rusting Japanese shipwrecks. One of the lagoon’s advantages to the Japanese during the war was its location and the surrounding protective reef with only five easily defensible passes. One of the main disadvantages of the lagoon in the current circumstances is its closed and protected environment. The oil will have nowhere to go, but it will completely destroy the lagoon and its surroundings.

In 2006, American conservationist Michael Barrett followed a large oil slick on the surface to the Hole Maru. Tea Hole it is one of three tankers found at the bottom of the lagoon that could contain millions of liters of oil. The Hole itself was built to transport two million liters of oil in its bunkers. But while tankers are the main concern, other ships are also slowly leaking their oil.

The problem of oil leaks from the remnants of war in Micronesia was highlighted when the oil tanker USS Mississippi started leaking. The tanker was sunk in 1944 by a Japanese suicide submarine near the island of Yap and when a typhoon tore through the area in 2001, it began leaking oil at a rate of more than 1,100 liters per day. The leak continued on and off for eighteen months before environmental conditions deteriorated to the point that Micronesia declared a state of emergency and banned fishing, a big step considering that locals depend on the sea for both their income for their food.

The US Navy was sent in and fixed the leak, but they came back the following year to fix another one. Finally, in 2003, after another leak was discovered, it was decided that it would be best if they simply removed the remaining oil. They used a process called ‘hot drilling’ in which submersible hoses are connected to fuel tanks and the oil is pumped to a surface barge. The entire process cost more than US$5 million, and although some of the 7.5 million liters of recovered oil was refined and sold, the money from the sale only paid for a small fraction of the total cost. And therein lies part of the problem.

I hope we can find an answer before it’s too late. Ian McLeod, an Australian corrosion expert, conducted a survey of the wreck in 2002 and made a prediction that the wreck could begin to crumble within 10 to 15 years. Add a typhoon or some localized dynamite fishing to the mix and it could happen at any time.

The tiny state of Chu’UK relies entirely on its lagoon for survival. There is high unemployment and the divers that come every year don’t really bring in substantial dollars. I don’t think anyone who has dived Truk would dispute that there is an oil leak. I know I’ve tasted it in my mouth and seen little oil stains when diving the tender Japanese submarine the Rio de Janeiro Maru.

I rate my trip to the Truk Lagoon wreck as one of the highlights of my diving career. I learned a lot, saw the human cost of war for the first time, and immersed myself in some of the most incredible shipwrecks I’ve ever seen.

It would be disastrous to lose it.