There is less flushing of the Baltic every year and that's geological in causation. During the last ice age, a huge weight of ice pressed down that entire area and the ground is still slowly moving back upwards. So, the entry at Denmark has become shallower all along and will keep on doing so. The flushing of the Baltic will become less and less. Considering the astounding amount of crap tossed into that body of water over the years, as well as the agricultural nutrient runoff, it's highly doubtful it will ever recover. Nope, I think the Baltic will die completely, except for plagues of algae and jellyfish and all kinds of emergency populator species.
I think we should write this one off. It's past saving. It's almost ecologically dead anyhow. People and industry should not dump in it any more, it's terrible for the health of the communities who live on the shores. But, don't try to make it a viable ecosystem again. Not only do we have human nature against it, we have geology working against it too.
The European Commission is contributing 9 million euro to the 27 million euro project Bonus+ to try and fix the Baltic. I say, that money could be better spent elsewhere on marine areas in Europe that need protection or that have a better chance of recovery. This is simply throwing good money after bad.
The news brought back to port by the Aranda was not good. First, the 59-meter (194-foot) research vessel happened across an invasive species of jellyfish in the eastern Gulf of Finland -- the same creature already responsible for decimating fisheries in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.
Second -- and more concerning -- the Helsinki-based ship found rising levels of phosphorous in the waters off Poland and Russia. Phosphorous is a by-product of agricultural runoff and human waste -- and it's a warning that massive, deadly algae blooms could be on the horizon.
The ship cruises the Baltic Sea on behalf of the Finnish Institute of Marine Research, monitoring the sea's vital signs. For years they have not been good, with fisheries suffering, pollution rampant and algae at times spreading out of control. Last month, though, the countries on the shores of the northern European sea got together to sign a treaty to do something about it. Called the Baltic Sea Action Plan, the accord follows years of efforts at bringing Baltic Sea pollution under control -- including a similar effort launched in Russia to curtail untreated wastewater reaching the sea from the densely populated region around St. Petersburg.
The Aranda, though, has found that phosphorous levels have continued to go up. "It is very important to monitor if these efforts have had any effect," Dr. Markku Viitasalo, a leading scientist at the Finnish Institute of Marine Research, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "And the answer is, not yet."
According to recent statistics gathered by the Helsinki Commission (Helcom), a 10-member organization that has been seeking to improve the Baltic Sea's health since 1974, some 730,000 tons of nitrogen and 36,300 tons of phosphorous make their way into the sea each year through a combination of human sewage, agricultural and industrial runoff, and airborne pollution. It's enough to trigger blue-green algae blooms massive enough to choke out the oxygen that sustains marine life.
Not only that, but there is a vast quantity of industrial waste strewn about on the floor of the Baltic Sea. Thousands of tons of chemical weapons were dumped into the sea following World War II, and waste from heavy industry was poured into the water as well. In August 2006, some 23,000 barrels of mercury were found on the sea floor off the coast of Sweden. There are also fears that the construction of a planned natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany may stir up some of the heavily toxic waste resting on the sea floor.
"The Baltic Sea is one of the most polluted seas in the world," Juhu-Markku Leppänen, a Baltic Sea habitat expert with Helcom, told SPIEGEL ONLINE last year. Fifty years ago, he says, dumping industrial waste into the sea "was really considered at the time to be good environmental practice."
Now, though, the race is on to help the sea recover before the Baltic dies completely.
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