Poison spill wrecks C. Europe
By Michael Roddy
KISKORE (Hungary): The cartoon in a Hungarian newspaper showed a fish hooked
in the Tisza river pleading to a fisherman: ``I'll grant you three wishes if
you don't throw me back.''
The river in question was described by UN officials this week as the site of
one of the worst pollution accidents in Europe, comparable to the Sandoz
chemical plant spill in the Rhine in 1986.
A spill of an estimated 100 tonnes of cyanide-laced slurry, allegedly leaked
from an Australian-Romanian owned gold smelter upstream in Romania, created
what scientists called a ``wave of death'' all along the Tisza, downstream
to the Danube in Serbia.
Fish, wildlife, micro-organisms and plants were killed the length of one of
Central Europe's most important river systems. Hungary alone pulled 85
tonnes of dead fish from the tisza. ``Everyone who loves nature and loves
the river feels like this is a personal injury,'' said Jozsef Szen, mayor of
Kiskore, a river town of 330 people in central Hungary, about halfway along
the Tisza's meandering course from Romania to Serbia.
The UN, European Union and other international officials and
conservationists have begun investigating the legal and financial
implications of the spill in late January from the Aurul S A gold smelter in
Baia Mare, Romania. The smelter is half-owned by Australia's Esmeralda
Exploration Ltd. The company at first said reports of destruction were
exaggerated but later expressed regret for what had happened, while saying
the cause had yet to be determined. Up and down the river, however, there
was little doubt about where the cyanide had come from and who was to blame.
On Friday, Hungary took the first steps to freeze the assets of Aurul.
Earlier in the week, foreign minister Janos Martonyi, in the strongest
statement by any Hungarian official, called Esmeralda's stance ``immoral and
indecent''.
In towns and villages along the Tisza, the more immediate issue for
residents was how to pick up the pieces of their lives intimately connected
to the damaged river system. Imre Sos, 55, who used to supplement his meagre
Hungarian pension by eating fish from the Tisza, said he had had to stop
after one of the dogs in kiskore was killed by poisoned fish. ``If you eat
the fish, you'll die,'' Sos said.
Local restaurateur Jozsef Sari said the scale of the disaster may have been
blown out of proportion by the press. ``A riverman told me the other day
he'd found a living snail beside the river, and assured me it is a good
sign,'' Sari said. But he admitted it's hard to move the fish dishes on his
menu, auguring poorly for the critical tourist season. ``Right now, nobody
eats fish, even though none of this comes from the Tisza,'' he said.
Angry Romanian villagers protested to European environment commissioner
Margot Wallstrom on Wednesday, as she toured the Tailings Dam of the Aurul
mine, that repeated failures of the dam walls had resulted in poisoning the
rivers with cyanide.
``This poison is spilling over and killing us. This area is no longer
inhabitable,'' Ms Gavril Matra, 76, from the village of Bozinta Mare, told a
visibly moved Ms Wallstrom.
Villagers around Baia Mare, 600 km north of Bucharest, say nobody warned
them of hazards posed by the January 30 accident, when a wall at the
Tailings Dam failed. They say that local officials took a full week to
sample village wells for cyanide content, and that only after Hungary
officialy complained about damage to the Tisza. Romanian officials insist
they immediately warned the population against drinking water from a local
river.
The manager of Aurul told Ms Walstrom his company was sorry. said. ``We've
reconstructed the embankment according to recommendations from Romanian
experts,'' Philip Evers told her at the dam. The plant has been closed
pending an investigation by Romanian and Hungarian experts, expected in two
weeks. (Reuters)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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