Two tonnes of oil and sand collected by sieve. Rowy to Ustka clean, two stretches still need work

Staff of the Maritime Office in Słupsk have completed another stage of removing oil residue from the beaches of the municipality and town of Ustka. Around 2,100 kilogrammes of contaminated material were collected, meaning fuel oil together with sand and other debris, and most of the work was done by hand: with shovels, rakes and sieves that allowed the fine fractions of the substance to be separated from the sand. Today the stretch from the border of the Słowiński National Park to beach entrance U14, and from entrance U15 to entrance U33 at Ustka's third pier, is clean. Two sections still need checking.

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03 october 2026 | 08:42 | Source: Gazeta Morska | Prepared by: Kamil Kusier | Print

fot. Urząd Morski w Słupsku

This is the tally from only one of the two maritime offices that have been collecting fuel oil from beaches for weeks. The pollution, which we have reported on, covered around fifty kilometres of coast in two provinces, from Rowy to Rusinowo and Wicie, and closed Ustka's beaches at the height of the post-season. The director of the Słupsk Maritime Office, Anna Sędzińska, spoke at the time of a suspected illegal discharge from a ship.

From the park boundary to the firing range, largely by hand

The work covered the beaches at Rowy, Dębina, Poddąbie, Orzechowo, Przewłoka and Ustka, the entire stretch between the boundary of the Słowiński National Park and that of the Air Force Training Centre at Ustka. The office stresses that, given the nature of the contamination, careful and largely manual cleaning of the beach surface was required. After a few days in water and on sand, fuel oil breaks into small balls and flakes that cannot be collected by machine without removing the whole top layer of sand, so a sieve in a worker's hand is the only tool that takes the substance and leaves the beach.

The 2,100 kilogrammes include sand and everything that stuck to the oil, so the amount of oil itself was considerably smaller. The office does not give an estimate, and that is the figure that will decide how the case is classified: liability looks different for a few dozen kilogrammes from a bilge than for several hundred from tank washing.

What is clean and where traces remain

The position today, by coastal kilometre marker: the stretch from kilometre 219 to 228.5, from the park boundary to entrance U14, is free of contamination; so is the stretch from kilometre 229 to 235.5, from entrance U15 to entrance U33.

Between entrances U14 and U15, on a half-kilometre section from kilometre 228.5 to 229, the beach is narrow and stony, so small residues may remain and their complete removal, the office writes, is difficult. The stretch from entrance U33 at the third pier to the boundary of the firing range has been cleaned, but residues were found on it and it needs re-checking and additional work. The office promises continued monitoring of both sections.

The statement concerns only the beaches in the municipality and town of Ustka. West of the firing range, from Jarosławiec to Wicie, the beaches fall under the Maritime Office in Szczecin, which has not yet issued its own summary, and it was there that further sections were closed in the first days of the pollution.

The question that remains open

Cleaned beaches do not close the case. It is still not known where the oil came from, whether laboratory analysis of samples made it possible to identify the fuel type and link it to a specific vessel, or whether prosecutors or the Border Guard have opened proceedings. Director Sędzińska spoke of a suspected discharge; since then the office has reported on cleaning, not on a culprit.

In the background is what we have been writing about for months: shadow fleet tanker traffic between the Gulf of Finland and the Danish straits, which passes along the Polish coast, and the absence of an effective mechanism to tie a slick on a beach to a ship in the fairway. Two tonnes of oily sand collected with sieves is the cost of that absence, counted in the working hours of maritime office staff who spent several weeks doing what nobody should have to: removing by hand from a beach what someone poured into the sea.

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