Light shone on bilge dumping across Europe

A report led by a Netherlands-based investigative journalism team has revealed as many as 3,000 illegal oil dumps from commercial ships may be happening in European waters every year.

The practice, known as bilge dumping, is when water is flushed through the engine rooms to clear out built-up debris, which can often include fuel, cleaning products and chemicals, such as arsenic. Although there are safe, legal ways to dispose of the bilge water, many ships choose illegal dumping instead.

Using satellite footage and freedom of information requests, Dutch-based Lighthouse Reports has worked with publications across Europe to examine the extent of the problem, and the effectiveness, or lack of it, of the response from the authorities.

Whistleblowers described such basic tactics as dumping bilge at night, using small, discrete pumps, and into choppier waters which disperse the bilge more quickly to make detection harder, and because of its often smaller scale, the practice can evade the scrutiny given to more obvious and visible leaks.

The Guardian newspaper reports that oil spills at sea are overseen by the CleanSeaNet program of the European Maritime Safety Agency, or EMSA, which then informs nearby countries, who should investigate to see what is the cause, and if it is anything of concern.

But the EMSA's response data shows a lack of urgency. In 2020, it identified 7,672 potential spillages, but only received feedback on one-third, with 208 confirmed as being slicks.

The EMSA only publishes a limited amount of data, often on security grounds, and there is no obligation on countries to say what if any action has been taken in the case of illegal dumping being confirmed.

"This is a problem that's been invisible to the public," John Amos, president of environmental monitoring organization SkyTruth, told the Guardian.

"You can give governments all the best tools in the world but if there's no public accountability and pressure for them to use those tools, problems will not get fixed."

Lighthouse Reports tweeted that its investigation revealed an average of eight illegal bilge dumps taking place each day, with each covering an area on average the size of 750 soccer pitches, causing huge environmental damage.

German news website DW.com reports that SkyTruth estimates the amount of bilge dumping carried out around the world each year could be up to 200,000 cubic meters, making it five times as much as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989, widely regarded as one of the worst maritime environmental disasters in history.