[imagesource:rawpixel]

While tourists flock to the picture-perfect views of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, few realise that just metres below the surface lies approximately 3,300 tonnes of unexploded munition, dumped there by the Swiss army over a period of decades.

So many munitions have been dumped into Swiss lakes, that the country is now offering £45,000 (R1 million) in prize money for the best idea to get it out. The best three ideas for a ‘safe and environmental solution’ to retrieve the munitions will share the prize, but the salvage operation is expected to cost billions.

Lake Lucerne is not the only headache for Switzerland, with the waters of Neuchatel, which the Swiss air force used for bombing practice until 2021, also hiding a deadly cache of 4,500 tonnes of explosives.

While some munitions are at depths of 150 to 220 metres, the ones in Lake Neuchatel are just six or seven metres below the surface, making fishing in this area the most dangerous sport in the world.

The bomb-dumping has been a growing headache for the Swiss government, but the safety of residents in the area has now become a pressing issue – this despite Swiss geologist Marcos Buser having warned the government of the dangers of the dumps for nearly a decade.

Buser raises two concerns with the explosives. The first is obviously that it might explode even if it is submerged as “the army did not remove the fuses before dumping the munition” in numerous instances. Secondly, there is a potential for very poisonous TNT to contaminate the sediment and lake water, resulting in pollution of both soil and water.

These two points aside, a tourist hotspot filled with tonnes of explosives is just a very bad situation all around.

Ammunition weights, magnetic iron, and low visibility are among the factors the Swiss government admits “represent major challenges for environmentally friendly ammunition recovery”. A 2005 evaluation of potential recovery methods also revealed that every proposal put up for munitions recovery presented serious dangers to the lakes’ delicate ecosystems. Blowing up the entire lake would indeed negatively affect the ecosystem.

We might question the wisdom of dumping bombs into lakes, but the truth is that the Swiss government has been doing this for decades.

In 1947, 3,000 tonnes of ammunition the army had stored in the mountain overlooking the pretty town of Mitholz exploded, killing nine people and completely destroying the town. The explosion was so loud that it could be heard 160 kilometres away.

Despite this tragedy, the army acknowledged three years ago that about 3,500 tonnes of unexploded ammunition still remains buried in the mountain. To clear the remaining ammunition, Mitholz will have to be evacuated for nearly a decade to allow for the safe removal of any dangerous leftovers.

It seems Switzerland has bombs lying around all over the place after the army this week acknowledged that since 2022, there has been a 12% increase in civilians finding explosives in the Swiss countryside. Much of this increase is due to the glaciers receding as a result of climate change.

As the ice melts, it is revealing spent and live ammunition left over from high mountain training which took place decades ago. While the army should have thought this through back then, the problem is a present one and someone must come up with a practical plan to remove them.

The Swiss defence department is now appealing to the public to submit their disposal ideas until February next year when they will be anonymously judged by a panel of experts.

While the government is not planning to implement the submitted entries immediately, they could “serve as the basis for further clarifications or for launching research projects”. This, however, sounds like a can being kicked down the road.

Hopefully, it doesn’t land in Lake Lucerne and blows the postcard town over the Alps.

[source:bbc]