On the 8th of April of 1945, during WWII, the German tanker "Franken" was hit by torpedoes of the Soviet airforce and sunk in the Baltic Sea near the Polish bay.[1, 6] The ships original purpose was to be used as a “floating gas station” providing gas and oil for other ships being used in the war. The tanks contain 11 810t of liquid oil and oils or 1.5 million liters of fuel. Due to corrosion, the walls of the tank get thinner every year. The walls containing the fuel was originals 12mm thick. Every decade that passes the walls get thinner by 1mm. 77 years have passed since the ship sunk. At any point the tank could collapse under its own weight, releasing tons of hazardous chemicals into the waters of the Baltic Sea.[2] Leakage is going to have fatal effects on the environment. This would be threatening living organisms in the water, killing them or disturb them in their natural habitat. The Polish citizens living in proximity would also be affected negatively. Their access to water and seafood or fish from the Baltic Sea would be limited, tourism would be affected negatively due to visual impacts of the release of the fuels in the water, impacting the economy.

Furthermore, the toxic and carcinogenic substances could cause health problems in the future for the population living nearby.[3] The shipwreck is currently property of the Polish government. A preliminary action plan for retrieval activities for "Franken" has been drafted, but no action has been taken yet.[4]

The main objective is to salvage the fuel and then dispose it which is a very costly venture. According to Benedykt Hac, Oceanography Department of the Maritime Institute in Gdansk, costs of €8-20 million can be estimated.[5]

The MARE foundation, founded in 2016, is the only non-governmental organization in Poland focused on the protection of the Baltic ecosystem, gathering 45.000 signatures on demand of the Polish government to clean the tanks. They goal is to raise public awareness and plan activities to solve these issues. Among those activities there is a ready-made wreck management

program for Poland they published in 2021, “General Methodology of Oil Removal Operations on Baltic Shipwrecks” [7], to deal with shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea in general and the “Preliminary Action Plan for the retrieval activities on the Franken shipwreck”[4] for this specific shipwreck. This is based on underwater investigations and documentations of the shipwreck carried out by the German “Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation (“Baltcf”) on the 23rd – 26th of April 2018.[4]

A preliminary research expedition by the MARE foundation, Baltcf and Maritime Institute in Gdańsk was carried out on 23rd-28th of April 2018 [4].

It was estimated that approx. 1.5 milion liters of fuel is still inside of the tanker [4]. However, the exact current loading is unknown. It was impossible to determine which tanks contain oil but it was possible to determine which don't because of the unsealing. Tanks that look sealed could contain 4,608 tonnes of different types of oil. Almost half of the volume of the tanks is still sealed, without any access from the outside, which means that each of the 5 sealed tanks can be filled with oil.

The sealed tanks have a capacity between 573 tonnes to 1221 tonnes [4]. The cost of operation to extract the fuel was estimated for around 8-20 million EUR [4]. There is no estimation of the population that is going to be affected however, Tricity (Gdansk, Gdynia, Sopot) population itself is about 1.5 milion. The values of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in the samples collected in the close vicinity of the wreck (near field) dramatically exceed the limit values imposed by the environmental regulator [4].