Baia Mare

Change for the Better?



Growing population & urban development



Expansion restricted in some areas by the presence of old tailing ponds Residents live within 50m of highly toxic, potentially chronically leaking, waste sites

Change for the Better?



Early 1990s: Plans to clean three tailing ponds in order to allow further development of the city


Creation of the Baia Mare Aural gold mine - a joint venture with Australian and Romanian partners Goal: transport waste away from the city where the remaining gold and silver in the tailings waste could be recovered using new technology unavailable when the original ponds were established

Idealistic Goal


The company described the process as follows: "after removal of the precious metals, the tailings will be redeposited in a plastic lined dam which will provide a totally closed water circuit with zero discharge to the surrounding environment"

Tailing Pond

The Event


The Aurul SA Company uses cyanide in a process to recover gold and silver from mine waste material, a practice prohibited in the countries of the European Union

The process


In the gold-extraction process, rock is goldsmashed to dust, mixed with water, then cyanide is added to "leach" the gold out

Operational Plans


Target pond = old Meda pond in Baia Mare



4.43 million tons of flotation solid wastes water added to wastes to form slurry, which is pumped into a pipeline to the processing plant where cyanide is added to extract gold and silver Post extraction, the remaining tailing fluid is pumped to a new pond, lined with plastic, 65 km away from the city

Operational Plans


Construction by Operation" dam wall



Coarse solids from the tailing fluid are used to progressively build up the wall

water from the pond was re-used in the reremining to reduce the need of fresh cyanide

Things went


terribly

terribly wrong.

Toxic slurry and water were pumped through unprotected pipelines Plastic lining membrane only 1mm thick under the dam and 0.5mm thick in the pond floor area: no further protection provided in the event of a puncture

Things went


terribly

terribly wrong.

Insufficient quantity of coarse material to build the dam Due to freezing of underflow, very low temperatures hindered the operation of hydrocyclones. Hence, dam formation would cease. Temperatures went below zero on December 21, 1999, and stayed low for five weeks.

Things went


terribly

terribly wrong.

After heavy rains, the top of the dam broke on January 30 at 10.20 p.m. over a length of 25 metres and released an estimated amount of 100,000 m3 of waste water within 11hours. After analysing the situation,Hungarian authorities have calculated that a total of 120 tonnes of cyanide was spilt along a 45.4 km section of the Somes river.

The water/sludge wave moved with immense force along dust roads, through the village of Bozinta Mare,and across fields into the river system of the Lapus, Somes, Tisza and Danube which flows into the Black Sea. It took 70 workers and several bulldozers 51 hours to repair the breach.

The Event


heavy rains and rapidly melting snows made the water level in the tailings pond rise, this rise was quicker than the rise of the dam which was intended to grow gradually over time as additional tailings accumulated

The Event
There were no plans to deal with such a rise in water or to catch overflow wastewater  the operation was actually open at two points, at the old and the new ponds, which allowed unmonitored amounts of cyanide to be regularly lost into the air and/or groundwater


The Event


  

On January 28, when the water table in the basin was rising visibly, Phillipp J. Evers, AURUL's executive director, failed to take obviously necessary measures such as: - pumping the water off; and/or - reinforcing the dam; - alerting the general public, technical organisations, army units etc. to ask for rescue measures. He thus ignored the international disaster he was causing.

The Event


Instead, on that same day , January 28, while he saw the water table rising in pond, he announced to his company ESMERALDA in Perth, Australia, that he would quit his job. Brett Montgomery, ESMERALDA's chief manager, told him to stay for four more weeks.

The Event


This event led to the death of virtually all life in the 'mill canal' next to pond 3, the Somes and Tisza rivers over a length of 525 km in Hungary plus 150 km from the Hungarian/Yugoslavian border to the Danube in Serbia. The toxic wave moved along the river at a speed of 3 to 4 km/h.

The Event


The polluted water crossed the Hungarian border at 4 p.m. on February 1st. The contamination plume traveled for twelve days within Hungarian territory, leaving only in the early morning on February 12th, at which time it crossed over the border with Yugoslavia and began polluting the Yugoslavian part of the Tisza and the Danube.

The Event


Children vomited for three days after the toxic wave had moved through their villages. The day after the spill, frogs left their winter refuges and died on the street. Dogs eating dead frogs stopped barking and moving for a day.

The Event


Both Hungary and Yugoslavia observed massive amounts of dead fish killed by the toxic metals, Hungary reported 1,367 tons of them Fish along one stretch of the Tsiza river were found to contain 2.6 mg of cyanide per kilogram of weight

The Event
 

Fortunately, no injuries to humans were reported from Hungary. This is due to admirably well coordinated measures in Hungary to cut off all drinking water supplies along the Tisza river and to supply fresh water from other regions in plastic bags and tank cars. The reason for this was an early warning from the Romanian regional authority at 6.20 a.m. on January 31, ten hours after the dam broke.

The Event
 

Almost all of the fish in the Tisza died. An estimated 15% (200 tonnes) of the total stock in the Hungarian part of the Tisza - including huge catfish, sturgeons and carp, were pulled out of the river. Altogether, 38 species were identified. They were at first disposed of as hazardous wastes but then authorities decided to keep them refrigerated.

The Event


 

Wildlife and fish eating birds as well as livestock have suffered and were still absent in places Greenpeace visited on February 22 and 25. All otters and beavers in the river are said to have been killed. Dead gulls, black cormorants, mute swans, foxes, roe deer, pheasants, pigeons and hares were found. In late February, dead donkeys and horses were pulled out of the river.

The Event


At least two white-tailed eagles were whitefound, one dead and one paralysed, in the Hortobagy National Park area which is part of the Tisza river system. The eagles had been reintroduced to the park in an expensive, time and labour consuming programme over the last 15 years.

The Event


 

The oral lethal dose for sodium and potassium cyanide is estimated at 2 mg/kg the pollution weakens the immune system, especially in children, and leaves them vulnerable to other illnesses most common complaint is vomiting Cyanide readily and reversibly binds to all enzymes and proteins that contain iron in the body

The Event


It causes effects similar to suffocation: loss of consciousness, vertigo, in high doses it will cause coma with seizures, cardiac arrest and then death soon following Skin will appear pink or red because the oxygen stays in the blood rather than diffusing into the cells where the oxygen is needed

The Event


In Romania, about ten hours were lost between the time the Baia Mare Environmental Protection Agency received notification of the spill from Aurul and the time the local Romanian Water Authorities were informed Villages close to the accident site were provided with alternative water sources, but were allegedly not informed about the spill sufficiently early.

The Event
Downstream drinking water was not affected because of the use of alternative supplies and deep wells.  Consequently, immediate human health risk seems to be minimal from this spill alone, but chronic health impacts due to long-term pollution by longheavy metals are possible


The Clean-Up Clean-

Romania
  

Treated spill with Sodium Hypochlorite Public Announcements Fishing Prohibited

Hungary
 

Closure of Kiskore dam Closure of water intake from river to towns Public Announcements

Yugoslavia


 

Hydraulic Gates Protected Side Branches and Canals Prohibition on Fishing and Fish Trading Water Management Companies Informed All Users Closed Belgrade Water Intake

The Event


However, the Environment Minister of Romania and the Bucharest Foreign Office played down the extent of the disaster and supported AURUL in order to fend off demands for compensation. Both Romanian politicians and gold mining managers claim that only a small amount of toxic substances were spilt and a connection between the spill and the destruction of life in Hungary cannot be established.