Ammunition in the lakes: Armasuisse in search of ideas for salvage
Published: Wednesday, Aug 7th 2024, 14:10
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The Federal Armaments Office is looking for ideas for the environmentally friendly and safe recovery of ammunition from Swiss lakes. The three best ideas will receive a prize of CHF 50,000. The ideas will not be directly incorporated into the salvage process, but will serve as a starting point.
Between 1918 and 1964, the military dumped munitions in a number of Swiss lakes. As Armasuisse, the Federal Armaments Office, announced on Wednesday, these munitions are mainly located in Lake Thun, Lake Brienz and Lake Lucerne in water depths of between 150 and 220 meters.
With the ideas competition, Armasuisse wants to involve universities and industry more closely in considerations regarding the recovery of these deeply buried munitions, should this ever become necessary. According to Armasuisse, this could be the case if, "contrary to expectations, a release of pollutants" is detected during the seawater inspection.
In 2005, an investigation revealed that all possible solutions for munitions recovery at the time would have stirred up a lot of mud and thus endangered the sensitive ecosystem of the lakes.
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