http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1321948-offshore-drilling-could-detonate-unexploded-bombs-expert-warns

The Major Threat we face for an Incident to occur in an Off-shore Underwater Munitions Sites is non-UXO personnel Risk Mitigating for Oil and Gas Projects. Its Extremely Dangerous to allow General Consultants with no formal education for Underwater Unexploded Ordnance to Risk Mitigate Sites for Oil and Gas, Commissions and Petroleum Boards.  With no Formal Education on Munitions the little bit of information they know becomes Dangerous and Short-cuts become the Norm, in Many Cases how Accidents are Created.  TP LONG

Did you know that the BP Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon was drilling in a Documented Underwater Munitions Dump Site when it blow-up?  Even if it wasn’t a Munitions we now know the Potential Risks!

Deepwater offshore drilling by the energy sector has a Sydney expert flagging the threat of munitions dumped off the coast of Nova Scotia.

“The exploration companies are drilling deeper than ever before and, back in the day, these same deep waters were selected by authorities for disposal of unexploded ordnance,” Terry Long, owner of Wentworth Environmental Inc. in Sydney, said in an interview Tuesday.

Long said drilling could potentially detonate an unexploded bomb, or rupture a canister filled with dangerous chemicals.

He has credentials when it comes to risks associated with munitions dumped off the coast of Atlantic Canada and in ocean waters around the world. His business specializes in removalof underwater ordnance, and he founded and chairs the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions.

Authorities have long been aware of the potential risks of undersea munitions dumps in Atlantic Canada. They number more than 3,000 between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, according to various sources.

The dumps are comprised mostly of unexploded bombs and unused chemicals from the first and second world wars.

Long said the munitions risk escalated as drilling rigs headed into deeper waters to search for oil. In this province, Shell Canada Ltd. is drilling in the Shelburne Basin, and BP is expected to begin drilling in 2017, after completing seismic work in 2014.

“There is a need for some constructive discussion on how best to mitigate the risk of these munitions,” Long said.

He said he is writing a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to raise his concern about the energy sector proceeding with inadequate assessments of undersea munitions dumps near drilling rigs.

However, a spokeswoman for the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board said there are extensive protocols in place relating to a range of undersea hazards, including unexploded ordnance.

The existence of dump sites has been recognized and accepted as part of assessments of offshore drilling programs since the 1960s, said Kathleen Funke, with the board in Halifax.

“Long before drilling occurs there are consultations with the Department of National Defence regarding unexploded ordnance,” Funke said.

Risk assessments of unexploded ordnance are part of required hazard surveys, she said.

“There is potential for ordnance to be an issue anywhere offshore and particularly in Nova Scotia, with our military history,” she said.

Funke said that in the case of the Shell program, undersea hazards would have been identified by a 3D seismic survey conducted in 2013. She said there were also assessments conducted with remote underwater vehicles equipped with high-definition cameras.

“If there were any issues, they would have been uncovered by these sophisticated technologies,” she said.

Shell has the exploration vessel Stena IceMax drilling offshore, about 250 kilometres from Shelburne.

Learn more about sea dumped chemical weapons in our rivers, lakes, seas and ocean. Left in the marine environment they will destroy our global fish stocks, increase our global heath care costs, increase global cancer rates and continue to create dead zones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BZ88S9OfdU#t=18

Thank you for taking the time to watch.

International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions (IDUM) is a registered Dutch Foundation in the city of The Hague, The Netherlands. IDUM maintains and operates a Board of Directors and an International Technology Advisory Board (ITAB) on Sea Dumped Weapons (SDW’s). IDUM’s goals are to establish an International binding Treaty on all classes of Underwater Munitions, to develop a global database on locations of underwater munitions sites and to act as a repository for underwater munitions related information.

IDUM has cooperated with the Lithuania Mission to the United Nations in 2010 and 2013 to present an overview of the United Nations Resolution on Sea Dumped Chemical Weapons at the United Nations Second Committee on Environment. IDUM has been identified by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Third Review Conference of State Parties Report in 2014 for their international cooperation on sea dumped chemical weapons and has also been identified for our cooperation in the Secretary General of the United Nations Report 2013 on Cooperative Measures on Sea Dumped Chemical Munitions.

IDUM has partnered with international organizations on programs as Co-Director, Search and Assessment of Chemical Weapons in the Baltic Sea (CHEMSEA) and Co-Director for NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) MODUM.  IDUM presently maintains Observer Statist for the Helsinki Commission Ad Hoc Working Groups on Sea Dumped Chemical Weapon, Submerged Working Group for Hazardous Wrecks and Seabed Warfare Materials, and Helsinki Commission Head of Delegation (HOD).  IDUM maintain Observer Statist at OSPAR Commission for Protection of North-East Atlantic Ocean & International Seabed Authority (ISA) for Deep Sea Mining of rare minerals Jamaica.

IDUM is on the Polish Scientific Committee Yearbook for Marine Security, we have co-edited two Marine Technology Society Journals (MTS) on the Legacy of Underwater Munitions: Policy and the Science of Assessment, Evaluation of Impacts and Potential Responses. IDUM written guidelines for Chemical Weapons Agents Contaminated Areas in cooperation with Polish Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Defense Research Agency. IDUM has cooperated on two international documentaries: Foot Prints of War and Deadly Depths witch Deadly Depths won best international documentaries from more than 400 entries at the German Green Screen Film Fest in 2014.

IDUM is seeking like-minded organizations and individuals to cooperate for the development of project proposals for 2016/2017 on underwater munitions related activities including but not limited to: Policy, Science, Technology and Potential Responses. Interested organizations and individual should contact me direct: tplong@eastlink.ca or call me on my Dutch mobile: +31 629932932.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to hearing from you in the near future on how we can cooperate.  We need your cooperation to save the seas and ocean from toxic chemicals that left to rot will destroy our fish stocks and persist in the marine environment for 1000’s of years.

Sincerely,

Terrance P. Long, Chairman, IDUM,

www.underwatermunitions.org

Terry Long believes the world is in great danger. And he’s on a one-man mission to save it.

The Sydney native and retired army engineer wants to open the eyes of politicians, international leaders and the general public to the hazards of underwater munitions.

Long says munitions found throughout the world are poisoning seafood, harming fish stocks and potentially creating health problems for humans. Many of the munitions, which can include bombs, rockets, grenades and naval shells, were dumped in the seas or oceans and have been left to leak harmful contaminants for decades.

“This needs to be an election issue,” Long said on Saturday on the shores of the Bedford Basin. “It’s a global concern. Munitions are in every ocean in the world and we have some of the largest munition sites — both chemical and conventional sites — off the east coast of Canada.”

Long, who is the chairman of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions, based in The Hague, was in Dartmouth to test some new equipment.

Using a Deep Tracker remote-operated vehicle as well as some passive samplers, he will be able to measure for the first time how much of which contaminants are leaking from the munitions in the Bedford Basin.

“In the past, we’ve been using electromagnetic surveys, cameras underwater, whatever we could to detect where the munitions are,” he said. “But we’ve never been able to tell if they’re leaking or not. What this passive sampler does is it takes real-time readings as the munition leaks.”

Long says there are more than 3,000 munitions sites off the coast of Nova Scotia alone, including munitions left in the water from the Bedford Magazine explosion in 1945.

After his stint in Bedford, Long will head to the Baltic Sea to carry out similar testing.

Long, who is also the co-director of the NATO Science for Peace and Security program, says Canada is not taking the issue of underwater munitions as seriously as it should.

“I have to look at what we did with landmines. We were able to develop an international treaty on landmines. … This is an opportunity where a Canadian leader could do the same thing we did with landmines. … And our government does nothing about it.”

International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions (IDUM’s) International Technology Advisory Board (ITAB) on Sea Dumped Weapons (SDW) will develop a MOU to provide expert advice on sea dumped chemical and conventional weapons to the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston Jamaica, where IDUM recently became an Observer. The ISA is the seabed authority under International law of the Sea, including oversight of deep water sites for exploration of rare minerals. Some deep water sites are also home to the world’s chemical weapons sites.  Please join our open LinkedIn Group ” International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions” to provide your comment on sea dumped weapons.  Millions of tons of munitions left to corrode will destroy our ocean and seas unless we safely and environmental friendly dispose of them. The solution isn’t dissolution. We welcome everyone to our LinkedIn Group ” International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions”

Thank you,

Terry

People & Passions, TU4

In the picure:IDUM – Underwater Conventional Munitions Site off Nova Scotia, Canada

Crusade to eliminate ‘ticking time bombs’ sitting beneath world’s waters 

“We all have our own battles to fight and this is mine.” These are the fighting words of Terrance Long, founder and director of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions (IDUM).

Based in The Hague, Long’s organisation is on a mission to rid the world of “millions” of tonnes of weapons rotting in seas and oceans across the globe.
The world’s waters, says Long, have become a dangerous “garbage dump” for these unwanted military munitions, ranging from highly explosive conventional ordnances to chemical weapons.

It’s a stark warning that Long doesn’t attempt to sugar coat. “If the underwater munitions aren’t neutralized or recovered from our waters in the near term then the ocean will die and we will cease to exist on this planet.”

A retired Canadian military engineer and an expert in explosive ordnance disposal, Long spent 20 years, both in the army and later for various NGOs, clearing land mines.
It was this experience that led Long to believe the same work could and should be done for the same weapons sitting at the bottom of the water.

“Because I’m a weapons expert, in my own mind I’m obligated to address this issue. There is something I can do about it, so I will.”

It’s a problem that has been ticking away for over 70 years. As Long explains, weapons, like most things, have an expiration date and need to be disposed of. By the end of the Second World War a solution was needed and during the Potsdam Conference of 1945 an agreement was made to rid stockpiled weapons by dumping them into the water, most notably the Baltic Sea.

According to Long, “That’s when a number of countries from around the globe started dumping their munitions, dating back from the First World World and continued doing so up until the 1970s.”

One of the biggest issues now facing Long and the IDUM is locating exactly where all the world’s munition dumping sites are located and exactly how many weapons there are.

“What we do know is that there are 400,000 tonnes of chemical munitions in the Baltic Sea alone. On a global scale, we estimate there are more than 10,000 dumping sites of chemical and conventional weapons.”

According to Long, these corroding weapons are posing an ever increasing danger to the environment and to us.

“They’re full of contaminates like lead, mercury, picric acid and TNT. Most are known carcinogens that we now have in our marine environment, that will persist there for 10,000 years. Our oceans cannot sustain that.”

He continued: “This really is a ticking time bomb. My greatest fear is that our international community will allow them to corrode to where we no longer have a means to detect the contaminates when the metals are gone.”

Despite the dire warnings, Long stresses there is hope: “This is absolutely a problem we can fix…in most cases if we remove the source contaminant, we remove the problem.

“But this issue needs to be addressed on a global scale, with a collective response, right now, with an urgent United Nations conference on all underwater weapons.”

In order to do this, Long and the IDUM continue to work for the creation of an internationally binding treaty on all classes of underwater munitions. The end game, says Long, is all about “protecting our oceans and saving them for our children.”

Text: Susannah Palk

Photo: © IDUM – Wentworth Environment Inc.

Please Sign Petition for United Nations Conference on Sea Dumped Weapon’s

It’s common to find underwater weapons in our seas and ocean. Governments continue to hide behind the Potsdam Agreement as justification to do nothing while our fish become contaminated to where they are not fit for human consumption. Chemical contaminates from these underwater weapons are creating a “Food Security Concern” whereas the chemicals effect the Juvenal fish ability to reproduce.

http://www.change.org/p/united-nations-secretary-general-call-for-an-immediate-united-nations-conference-on-underwater-chemical-radiological-and-conventional-weapons-dumped-at-sea-to-create-a-binding-treaty-on-for-the-environmental-friendly-clean-up-of-our-ocean-and-seas

PIC: Toxic Plums from Underwater Weapons Drift in the Seas and Ocean (MEDEA)

It’s becoming common to find underwater weapons in all our seas and ocean on a daily base. Governments continue to hide behind the Potsdam Agreement as justification to do nothing while our fish become contaminated to where they are not fit for human consumption. Chemical contaminates from these underwater weapons are creating a “Food Security Concern” whereas the chemicals effect the Juvenal fish to the point where they cannot reproduce which in many cases are mistaken for over fishing. Governments want us to believe that these weapons that have been designed to create death and destruction cannot affect human health or the health of our depleting fish stock.

We have the technology and global EOD experts to eradicate these weapons safely and environmental friendly from our waters.

We need your help by taking the time to sign our petition to save the seas and ocean from these “Point Source Emitters of Pollution”, remove them from the water and the toxic source is removed.

Please sign our petition below for an “Urgent United Nations Conference on Sea Dumped Weapons”. Please forward to your friends and ask them to sign as well.

http://www.change.org/p/united-nations-secretary-general-call-for-an-immediate-united-nations-conference-on-underwater-chemical-radiological-and-conventional-weapons-dumped-at-sea-to-create-a-binding-treaty-on-for-the-environmental-friendly-clean-up-of-our-ocean-and-seas

Thank you for your time and consideration. Your help is most welcomed

Terrance P. Long