WAR'S TOXIC DETRITUS

Europe is still cleaning up ordnance from the two world wars. The decaying ammunition threatens the marine environment and sea life.

- BY KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

MARKUS SCHREIBER Associated Press

DIVERS are working to recover ammunition in the Baltic Sea near Boltenhagen, Germany.

Slowly, Dirk Schoenen dives down to a huge pile of ammunition from World War II at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

He removes some of the top pieces and carefully puts them into a basket, as a team of engineers, divers and seamen watch his every move on monitors streaming live video from a camera attached to his head.

After an hour, the men pull Schoenen back up onto the Baltic Lift, a mobile platform about 3½ miles off the small town of Boltenhagen on the German coast. He has recovered several 12.8-centimer shells, some of them still inside a broken wooden box, fragments of smaller grenades, and several 2-centimeter projectiles.

His bounty was fruitful but humble compared with what's left on the sea floor.

About 1.6 million tons of old ammunition are lying on the bottom of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, posing a considerable danger: Their casings are slowly rusting and emitting toxic substances such as TNT compounds.

World War II mess

As tensions between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization build up on the Baltic Sea, with near-daily incidents involving sabotage of undersea cables, alliance fighter planes scrambling to push Russian military planes away, and hostile drones from the east invading Western airspace, Europeans are still busy cleaning up the mess that World War II — and to a smaller extent World War I — left behind in the ocean.