February 16, 2000. Copyright, 2000, Graphic News. All rights reserved

HUNGARY SUES OVER WIDESPREAD ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE

LONDON, February 16, Graphic News:  HUNGARY HAS said it will sue the joint Australian and Romanian owners of the Baia Mare gold mine, where a cyanide spill on January 30 has since spread through the river system to the Danube basin. Virtually all aquatic life in HungaryÕs Tisza river has been wiped out.

Laboratory tests carried out by the Agriculture Ministry in Serbia, which has also demanded compensation from Romania, show greatly increased levels of iron and copper in the Tisza. The World Health Organization warns that heavy metals such as lead and cadmium may pose an even greater threat.

Around 100,000 cubic metres of toxic sludge contaminated with cyanide and heavy metals poured from the mine, in north-western Romania, after a dam broke. More than 100 tonnes of dead fish have since been retrieved from the surface of the water but many more are believed to be lying on the river bed. In addition to species directly affected by the spillage, other species which feed on anything living in the river, including birds such as the white-tailed sea eagle, are also in grave danger.

Hungarian farmers living along the banks of the Tisza have been cautioned not to use well water as the contamination is likely to have spread into groundwater. Hunters and rangers have already reported seeing the bodies of land animals, poisoned by drinking from the river.

Gyšrgy Gado, World Wide Fund for Nature Conservation Director in Hungary, says ÒWe wonÕt know the real extent of the damage until an evaluation can be carried out in spring Ð but we know already that the rehabilitation of the river will take decades. The sooner we can fully assess the impact of the spill, the sooner we will know what it will take to recover what has been lost.Ó

WWF last week called on the European Commission to follow-up recommendations for preventing similar accidents within the EU, including compiling an inventory of toxic waste lagoons. The recommendations were first made in a report released last year pinpointing likely danger areas in the wake of the ecological disaster affecting a wetland area in southern Spain in April 1998.

The Baia Mare spillage is similar in size and environmental impact to a 1992 mine cyanide spill in Colorado that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates will cost around $170 million to clean-up.

ÒYouÕre having to re-establish an entire ecosystem,Ó, says Steve DÕEposito, president of the Mineral Policy Center, a Washington D.C.-based environmental group whch monitors mining. ÒSo it takes years, if not decades.Ó
/ENDS

Sources: Associated Press, WWF