[curiouscat]

I got this estimate from a news article and it seems most of the fuel oil etc. was already pumped out long ago. What they worry about now is essentially rotting food. So let's focus on that aspect.

"Costa Concordia had only just set off on a Mediterranean cruise when it ran aground in the waters by Giglio Island, leaving behind a week’s worth of food for more than 4,000 people. The grocery list of items trapped inside the ship right now includes 11,000 eggs, 17,000lbs of beef, 5,500lbs of cheese and more than 1,000 gallons of milk, according to the Daily Telegraph, among a host of other now-rotten foods. Experts fear this toxic stew .. is just waiting to spew out of the crippled cruise liner..."

So if I sum up all the food matter I think we have ~30 tons at most of biodegradable organic matter. Let's assume dilution even in a hypothetical tiny volume the enclosing box size of the ship itself. 290 m x 36 m x 15 m

That's 156×10³ m3.

That gives an organic matter concentration of ~190 ppm. I'm roughly assuming this leads to a BOD of 190 ppm which I think is a reasonably conservative assumption. (In 2 years a lot of the BOD is probably consumed away anyways)

Isn't that level of Chemical Oxygen Demand almost below what Governments allow you to dump into a river directly after treatment?

I must be doing something wrong, I feel, because they are spending 500 Million Euros on that salvage project after all. I'd love to be corrected.

PS. I agree there can be other environmentally damaging considerations but this rotting food point is what intrigues me.

[Borek]

My guess is that they do the salvage not because of the rotting food, more like nobody wants such a huge wreck sticking from water in a prominent place.

[curiouscat]

My guess is that they do the salvage not because of the rotting food, more like nobody wants such a huge wreck sticking from water in a prominent place.

500 Million Euros sounds like a lot to just get rid of an eyesore from a island of hardly a 1000 people and miles from nearest mainland.

[magician4]

from what I know, nobody really gives a damn 'bout rotting food here.
there might be some fuel and thatlike that raises concern, yes, but most of it had been pumped off already earlier anyway.

situation, plain and simple: there was an insurance covering those accidents, including salvage of the ship, should the situation arise

... and there's 500,000,000 euros on the table, and somebody wants to get a hand on this considerable amount of money

everything else is just a nice cover-up story


regards

Ingo

[curiouscat]

... and there's 500,000,000 euros on the table, and somebody wants to get a hand on this considerable amount of money

Usually insurers are very hard to let go of their money though. 

[magician4]

the lawyers of the Cosa Nostra*⁾ might be much more convincing than the lawyers of the insurance company...

something of such a dimension won't happen, unless these nice guys were involved
this is Italy, after all


regards


Ingo

*⁾
usually, the island of Giglio should belong to their territory, though with the mafia, you can't always be sure: there might be different of their branches involved here...