BECKENRIED, Switzerland (AFP) — Swiss authorities will begin Tuesday to examine the condition and danger posed by over 8,000 tonnes of munitions sunk decades ago in lakes across the country, an official told AFP.
Between the World War I and the middle of the 1960s, thousands of tonnes of munitions ranging from artillery to grenades to detonators were sunk into lakes across Switzerland.
Armasuisse, the Swiss defence procurement agency, will begin by retrieving samples of munitions from the bottom of the Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland, said Benno Buehlmann, who is in charge of the lake's environment.
Lake Lucerne alone holds some 3,200 tonnes of diverse munitions -- almost half the estimated total -- according to official statistics. But so far, no pollution has been detected in the lake.
"We will retrieve some samples of the munitions which will be analysed in laboratories for their levels of decomposition and the risks they may pose," Buehlmann told AFP.
"There was no ecological consideration in the past and that was the best way of getting rid of the munitions," he said, explaining why the army chose the lakes as their dumping ground for surplus munitions.
But Buehlmann ruled out retrieving all the munitions.
Doing so may pose an even greater danger to the environment, he said, due to chances of accidental explosions and disturbing sediments full of TNT residues and heavy metals which could provoke an "ecological disaster."
"The munitions are currently covered by 30 cm of sediments which separate them," he said.
The Swiss army would use a modified barge, equipped with a grip and guided by a submarine robot, to lift the samples.
The operation should last between two to three weeks and would be conducted in two other lakes which served as military dumping sites -- Lake Thun and Lake Brienz.
A final report will be submitted by the end of next year.
Fish in Lake Thun, which holds some 4,600 tonnes of munitions, have shown anomalies in their reproductive organs, although the scientists have ruled out the army's stocks as the cause.
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