Bibliography
Baia Mare Cyanide Spill
en.wiki.org/wiki/2000_Baia_Mare_Cyanide_Spill
www.toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Baia+Mare+Cyanide+Spill
wwf.panda.org/?18173/Baia-Mare-Five-Years-After-the-Cyanide-Spill
Natalie Paysour & Nick Pendleton
Lessons Learned
Three atempts were made in the Romanian Parliment to ban gold cyanidation in Romania, none of which being successful so far.
The worst environmental disaster in Europe
since Chernobyl.
Enviromental impact
- More than 1,400 tons of fish have died as a result of this devastating environmental accident that destroyed the life basis for some hundred fishermen along the Tisza in Hungary. In some Rumanian and Hungarian towns the drinking water supply had to be shut down for some days. In Romania the village Bozinta Mare near the dam was most affected, with completely poisoned drinking water and soil.
- The population of fish has reached the same number as before the incident but because Aurul, now Transgold, still uses cyanide for mining, the environment is still being contanimated.
Response
Geographic Location
Baia Mare, Romania
Cyanide was spilled into the into the Somes River.
Sighisoara, Transylvania (central part of Romania) is 172.1 miles from Baia Mare.
Environmental Issues
Geographical Location
- 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 Waters Authority was informed. As a result, local residents near the source of the spill were not informed as early as possible.
- Once the spill was confimed, they informed the Water and Environmental Protection Agency of Hungary about the accident, and alerted local authorities downstream about the spill and dangers in using the river water for activities such as drinking.
Population: 136,553
Romania is an lower-middle income country economy.
- Compant involved: The gold mining company Aurul, a joint-venture of the Australian company Esmeralda Exploration and the Romanian government.
- The spill: On January 30, 2000, a dam holding contaminated waters burst and 100 tons of cyanide-contaminated water spilled over some farmland and then into the Somes river.
- The spill was the result of poor dam design and unusual weather conditions. The amount of precipitation during the winter of 1999 to 2000 was unusually high, which caused large amounts of water to build up in the pools. The days before the actual disaster were sunny and warm, resulting in snow and ice melting. These high amounts of water applied great pressure to the poorly built dam.